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LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


A   ROMANCE    OF 
OLD  NEW  YORK 


BY   EDGAR   FAWCETT 
* 

A  DEMORALIZING  MARRIAGE 
Paper,  50  cents  ;  cloth,  $1.00 

DOUGLAS  DUANE,  AND  SINFIRE 
Paper,  50  cents ;  cloth,  $1.00 


A  ROMANCE  OF 
OLD  NEW  YORK 

BY 

EDGAR   FAWCETT 


PHILADELPHIA  &  LONDON 

J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 

1897 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


Copyright,  1897 

by 
J.  B.  Lippincott  Company 


A    ROMANCE    OF 
OLD  NEW  YORK. 

I. 

THE  two  young  men  had  just 
turned   a   corner   of    State 
Street,  and  had  come  full 
into    view    of   the    Battery,    green 
and  breezy,  with   its  flashes   from 
the  broad  bay  beyond,  glimpsed  be- 
tween foliage  of  maple  and  elm. 
"Good-morning,  Mr.  Burr." 
"Good-morning,  sir;  good-morn- 
ing." 

Mark   Frankland  raised   his  hat, 

and    the    short,   slender  gentleman 

with  the  clear-cut  face   and   large, 

dark-blue,    sparkling    eyes    saluted 

7 


2041824 


A  Romance  of 


him  in  like  way,  though  somewhat 
more  ceremoniously. 

Mark's  friend  gave  a  little  annoyed 
shrug.  "  How  can  you  treat  that 
man  with  such  respect?"  he  said,  a 
note  of  scorn  in  his  voice. 

Mark  made  no  reply  till  they  had 
both  seated  themselves  on  a  bench 
in  the  great  verdurous  common. 
Over  them  leaned  a  tree  whose 
boughs  turned  the  vivid  May  sun- 
shine into  twinkling  arabesques  of 
gold. 

"I  was  somehow  brought  up," 
said  Mark  Frankland,  stretching  his 
shapely  limbs,  which  were  tired 
after  hours  spent  in  his  merchant 
father's  office  near  by  on  South 
Street, — "  I  was  somehow  brought 
up,  Gerald,  to  treat  Aaron  Burr  like 
a  gentleman." 

"Humbug!"  scoffed  Gerald  Suy- 
dam.  "  He  isn't  a  gentleman.  He's 

8 


Old  New  York 


a  horrible  scoundrel,  and  you  know 
it !  That  Blennerhassett  business 
dyes  him  black  as  one,  and  then  his 
duel  with  Hamilton " 

"  Oh,  I  know  just  what  you're 
going  to  say,"  broke  in  Mark,  dash- 
ing his  cambric  kerchief  over  a  dust- 
spot  on  the  sleeve  of  his  cinnamon- 
colored  coat.  "  Dad  has  his  ideas 
about  all  the  outrageous  buncombe 
printed  and  talked  on  the  subject 
of  Hamilton,  and  so  have  I.  The 
truth  is,  Gerald,  that  Alexander 
Hamilton,  with  all  his  talents  and 
virtues,  was  very  far  from  being  a 
saint." 

"And  thousands  of  people  are 
willing  to  swear  that  Aaron  Burr  is 
very  near  to  being  a  devil." 

"The  masses  are  nearly  always 
wrong,"  said  Mark,  staring  down  at 
one  of  the  burnished  buttons  on  his 
low-cut  "  Washingtonian"  waist- 

9 


A  Romance  of 


coat.  "As  you  know,  Colonel 
Burr  is  a  welcome  guest  at  my 
father's  house,  and  often  drops  in 
there  to  supper  of  an  evening." 

"Oh,  I  know,"  nodded  Gerald 
Suydam,  with  a  smile  of  polite  dis- 
approbation. "  The  countenance  of 
your  family,  Mark,  has  been  a  de- 
cided feather  in  his  cap.  When 
Burr  returned  from  his  four  years' 
absence  abroad,  in  1812,  it  was  for 
some  time  an  actual  disgrace  to  be 
seen  in  his  company.  Now,  eight 
years  later,  in  1820,  his  position 
would  not  be  much  better  but  for 
the  civility  shown  him  by  certain  of 
our  leading  townsfolk." 

With  furtive  amusement  Mark 
scanned  his  companion's  face. 

"  Mr.  Varick  Verplanck  happens 
to  be  among  these,  Gerald." 

"Oh,  yes;  I  grant  it." 

Mark    laid    a    hand    on    Gerald's 


Old  New  York 


shoulder.  His  voice,  usually  care- 
less, deepened;  an  unwonted  gravity 
sobered  his  brightness. 

"  I  know,  Gerald,  how  your  people 
hold  him  in  abhorrence.  But  dad 
and  Mr.  Verplanck  are  right.  Burr, 
for  a  man  of  his  splendid  intellect, 
has  done  madly  foolish  things." 

"Foolish,  eh?" 

"  Oh,  come,  now.  If  his  Blenner- 
hassett  scheme  had  succeeded,  if  he 
had  made  himself  Aaron  I.,  Emperor 
of  Mexico,  and  his  young  grand- 
child, Aaron  Burr  Alston,  heir  pre- 
sumptive to  the  throne,  with  his 
daughter,  Theodosia,  an  imperial 
princess,  with  General  Wilkinson 
commander-in-chief  of  the  army, 
and  with  Blennerhassett  minister  to 
England, — if  he  had  accomplished, 
I  say,  this  melodramatic,  filibuster- 
ing purpose,  we  would  to-day  be 
praising  his  brilliant  capacities,  and 


A  Romance  of 


forget  the  fact  of  his  having  shot  in 
a  duel  the  man  who  for  years  abused 
and  assailed  him  both  with  tongue 
and  pen.  After  all,  we  must  re- 
member, even  our  great  Washing- 
ton was  a  rebel " 

"But  not  a  traitor, "  sharply  struck 
in  Gerald. 

"  He'd  have  been  hanged  as  one 
if  the  British  had  caught  him — 
hanged  with  hardly  more  cere- 
mony than  they  showed  our  poor 
Nathan  Hale  when  they  strung 
him  up  on  that  apple-tree  in  old 
Rutgers  Orchard,  now  the  junc- 
tion of  Market  Street  and  East 
Broadway.  All  rebels,  my  dear 
Gerald,  are  looked  upon  as  traitors 
— till  they  succeed." 

"  I  hate,  Mark,  to  hear  you  com- 
pare Burr  with  "Washington.  It 
positively  sickens  me!"  And  Ger- 
ald Suydam  folded  his  arms  with  a 


Old  New  York 


look  of  defiance  on  his  dark,  virile 
face. 

"Nonsense!'*  admonished  Mark, 
lifting  a  forefinger.  "  Nobody  re- 
veres and  honors  Washington's 
memory  more  than  do  I.  He  was  a 
man  infinitely  above  Burr  in  morale, 
I  admit,  though  I  doubt  if  in  real 
mental  power  he  equalled  him." 

"Idiocy — rank  idiocy!"  breathed 
Gerald. 

"Thanks,  old  fellow.  I  don't 
mind  having  an  intimate  friend  tell 
me,  now  and  then,  that  I'm  a  fool. 
It  rather  wakes  me  up  to  a  healthful 
sense  of  my  own  deficiencies." 

"  Now,  Mark,  you  know  very 
well  that  I  didn't  mean " 

"  Oh,  of  course  you  didn't.  There 
— shake  hands.  You've  never  met 
Burr;  you've  never  been  under  the 
marvellous  spell  of  his  magnetic 
personality.  I  have,  Gerald.  I've 
13 


A  Romance  of 


heard  him  tell  of  those  four  years 
he  spent  abroad — from  1808  till  1812 
— as  an  exile  and  a  wanderer.  The 
tears  have  flooded  my  eyes  while  I 
listened.  Though  received  with 
delighted  graciousness  by  the  most 
distinguished  citizens  of  London, 
Edinburgh,  Stockholm,  Hamburg, 
Gotha,  Weimar,  and  finally  Paris, 
his  sufferings  in  those  foreign  lands 
were  terrible  past  belief.  Almost 
everywhere  he  was  an  object  of 
governmental  suspicion  and  dis- 
trust  " 

"Naturally." 

"  Well,  yes,  naturally,  I  concede. 
But  his  torments  of  poverty  'would 
have  wrung  the  stoniest  heart. 
Think  of  it !  A  man  who  had  been, 
but  a  few  years  before,  Vice-Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  and  had 
come  within  an  ace  of  being  our 
President,  subsisted  for  weeks  at  a 
14 


Old  New  York 


time,  in  Paris,  on  a  few  francs  a  day ! 
And  not  only  had  he  to  fight  this 
form  of  hardship.  The  government 
of  Napoleon  kept  him  under  inces- 
sant surveillance,  and  his  efforts  to 
quit  the  shores  of  France  were  for 
months  agonizingly  delayed.  At 
last  he  did  escape,  after  thwartings 
and  rebuffs  that  might  have  driven 
to  madness  a  spirit  less  resolute 
and  cheerful.  He  landed  here  in 
New  York  secretly  and  by  night. 
The  same  torments  of  poverty  still 
dogged  him,  and  to  these  the  odium 
was  added  of  nearly  every  one  who 
recognized  him  as  Aaron  Burr. 
But  with  indomitable  pluck  and 
nerve  he  resumed  the  practice  of 
law — a  profession,  you  will  grant,  in 
'which,  during  former  years,  he  had 
shone  superb  and  almost  unique. 
And  then,  scarcely  a  year  later, 
came  the  crushing  blow  of  his 
15 


A  Romance  of 


adored  daughter's  death.  And  such 
a  death !  The  Charleston  steamer 
which  bore  Theodosia  Alston  to 
the  father  "whose  "worship  she  had 
always  so  devotedly  returned  never 
reached  this  port.  You  recall  the 
harrowing  stories,  Gerald,  of  its 
having  been  boarded  by  pirates, 
and  of  Theodosia's  unknown  yet 
possibly  terrific  fate." 

"  Oh,  yes.  I  remember.  Who 
does  not?" 

"  Burr  bore  this  ghastly  affliction 
with  mighty  stoicism.  A  great  light 
went  out  of  his  life,  but  he  per- 
mitted no  one  to  see  the  awful 
darkness  which  followed  there. 
Since  then  he  has  striven  to  rise 
above  the  crushing  effects  of  his 
bereavement,  and  such  effort  does 
him  honor,  in  its  dignity,  calmness, 
and  reserve.  He  may  not  always 
have  been  a  good  man,  but  he 

16 


Old  New  York 


surely  knows  how  to  suffer  like  a 
true  one !" 

"Oh,"  laughed  Gerald,  though 
not  quite  amiably,  "here's  enthusi- 
asm run  riot !  I  see  that  Burr  has 
mesmerized  you ;  they  say  he  can 
do  it  with  both  men  and  "women, 
though  especially  the  latter." 

"You  end  your  sentence  with  a 
sneer,"  said  Mark  Frankland.  "  But 
let  me  tell  you  that  nearly  all  Burr's 
reported  gallantries  are  the  coinage 
of  his  relentless  enemies." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say ?"  be- 
gan Gerald,  rather  hotly. 

"  I  mean  to  say  that  he  has  always 
had  a  native  and  peculiar  power  of 
charming  women.  He  is  now  in  his 
sixty-fourth  year,  and  yet  scarcely 
less  vigorous  and  healthful  than  if  he 
were  five-and-thirty.  His  manner, 
to  every  woman  he  meets,  young  or 
old,  comely  or  plain,  is  the  essence 
2  17 


A  Romance  of 


of  courtesy,  jollity,  admiration,  and 
delicate  tact.  Hence  all  sorts  of 
bugaboo  tales  are  circulated  con- 
cerning his  sorry  licentiousness." 

"  'Would  you  care  to  have  him  pay 
his  courtly  compliments  to  your 
sister,"  asked  Gerald,  with  smoul- 
dering obstinacy,  "provided  you  had 
a  sister?" 

Mark  rose,  stretching  his  legs  and 
arms,  and  giving  his  smart  attire  a 
few  dainty  touches. 

"Lord  'a  mercy,  man,"  he  said, 
"  I've  seen  him  hold  a  silk  skein  for 
my  sweetheart  by  the  half-hour  at 
a  time,  and  deliberately  get  it  all  of 
a  tangle,  and  whisper  pretty  things 
to  her  with  a  roguish  look  at  myself, 
and  set  her  laughing  like  an  April 
brook  and  blushing  like  a  June  rose, 
and  I've  never  any  more  dreamed  of 
feeling  jealous  of  him  than  if  he'd 
been  my  great-grandfather." 

18 


Old  New  York 


"  By  your  sweetheart,"  said  Ger- 
ald, rising  also  and  following  his 
friend,  "  you  of  course  mean  Char- 
lotte Verplanck." 

"Whom  else  could  I  mean?"  re- 
plied Mark,  with  a  slight  inflection 
of  haughty  surprise.  "  Surely  you 
know  that  we've  been  engaged  for 
more  than  a  fortnight." 

"Oh,  yes,  I  know.  You  .  .  told 
me,  you  remember.  Besides,  I  had 
drawn  my  inferences." 

Gerald  murmured  these  words  in 
an  abstracted  way.  His  eyes  were 
lowered  upon  the  path  beneath  him, 
and  he  stroked  his  chin  with  ner- 
vous fingers. 

Mark  made  no  answer.  He  looked 
very  happy  and  genial,  there  in  the 
vernal  light,  under  the  variant  shad- 
ows of  waving  trees. 

"  Perhaps  you've  noticed,"  Gerald 
went  on,  slow-voiced  and  with  an 
19 


A  Romance  of 


accent  of  melancholy,  "that  I  never 
go  up  yonder  any  more." 

Mark  started.  He  understood  at 
once  that  "up  yonder"  meant  the 
big  brick  mansion  of  Mr.  Varick 
Verplanck,  on  Broadway,  only  a 
block  or  two  beyond  the  grassy  cir- 
cle of  Bowling  Green. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  a  little  awkwardly, 
"  I  have  noticed  that  you've  given  up 
visiting  Pamela." 

Gerald  lifted  his  head,  now,  with 
an  exasperated  sigh.  "  Look  here, 
Mark.  I  wanted  to  tell  you  some- 
thing when  we  began  our  little 
walk.  But  your  enthusiastic  eu- 
logy of  Colonel  Burr  kept  it  back. 
I  don't  suppose  you  will  like  to 
hear  it,  but  I  can't  help  that." 

"Not  like  to  hear  it  ?  Why, 
is  it  anything  so  very  disagree- 
able?" 

"  Yes ;  it  has  relation  to  Pamela's 


Old  New  York 


illness.  They  say  she  has  become 
a  very  sick  girl." 

"  She  isn't  at  all  well,  certainly. 
Charlotte  is  anxious  about  her  sister, 
and  so  is  Mr.  Verplanck." 

"They  say,  Mark,  that  the  girl  is 
rapidly  going  into  a  decline. " 

"  I  trust  it's  nothing  so  bad  as 
that,  Gerald.  Though  Charlotte  and 
her  father  are  both  worried,  still, 
only  yesterday,  Dr.  Wainwright  told 
him  that  he  thought  it  a  trouble  of 
the  nerves,  and  that  it  might  not 
prove  at  all  serious.  They're  going 
to  take  her  off  into  the  country  soon 
— to  their  place  at  Throgg's  Neck, 
you  know.  You  and  I  have  spent 
some  pleasant  hours  there,  in  recent 
summers,  have  we  not?" 

"Yes,  Mark,  when  I  believed 
Pamela  Verplanck  cared  for  me. 
But  now  it's  clear  to  my  mind  that 
she  has  never  cared." 


A  Romance  of 


"And  I  suppose  you  still  want 
her  to  care  ?"  said  Mark,  slowly. 

"Want  her  to  care!  Good  God, 
man,  why  don't  you  ask  me  if  I 
want  her  to  be  dying  of  love  for 
you?" 

Mark  turned  like  a  flash,  and  the 
two  faced  one  another. 

"Who's  been  telling  you,  Gerald, 
such  rubbish  as  this  ?" 

"  Never  mind.  It  has  come  from 
a  credible  source." 

"  From  the  gabbling  tongues  of 
gossips."  Mark's  blue  eyes  were 
ablaze,  and  his  lips  had  curled  in  a 
sneer. 

Gerald  looked  sorrowful  but  firm. 
"I  believe  it  is  true,"  he  said. 
Then  a  stormy  grief  stamped  every 
feature,  and  his  voice  became  vi- 
brant with  tremors  that  he  plainly 
sought  to  hide.  "  Past  observations 
confirm  it  now.  Certain  of  her  acts 

22 


Old  New  York 


and  words  recur  to  me  .  .  .  Oh, 
Mark," — he  broke  off,  with  a  great 
burst  of  vehemence, — "if  this  were 
true  of  any  other  living  man  but 
yourself  I  should  hate  him — I 
should  feel  like  killing  him !  But 
we've  been  friends  from  boyhood 
— we  were  college  classmates — we 
shared  each  other's  likings  and 
sports  and  scrapes  and  troubles; 
we're  distant  kinsmen  by  blood,  but 
brothers  in  affection,  sympathy.  I 
can't  hate  you — no,  I  can't!" 

Mark  saw  the  tears  glitter  in  his 
friend's  big,  dusky  eyes.  Gerald 
flung  himself  on  a  bench  near  by, 
and  sat  there,  his  lithe  young  body 
swerved  sideways,  biting  his  lips 
and  clenching  both  hands. 

Mark  walked  on,  pausing   at  the 

water's     edge.      He     felt     horribly 

shocked  at  Gerald's  late  words.     A 

vision   of  Charlotte  Verplanck,  the 

23 


A  Romance  of 


girl  he  loved  and  meant  to  marry, 
rose  before  him,  with  her  plump 
yet  lissome  shape,  her  damask 
cheeks,  her  ropes  of  crinkled  blue- 
black  hair.  Then  came  a  vision  of 
her  sister,  Pamela,  once  the  rosiest 
and  winsomest  of  blondes,  now 
sallow  and  languid,  with  half  her 
beauty  gone  and  the  pallor  as  of 
mortal  sickness  replacing  it. 

A  shiver  passed  through  Mark ;  a 
sense  of  gruesome  omen  darkened 
the  luminous  May  air.  Yet  his  look 
was  stubborn,  rebellious,  incredu- 
lous, as  he  murmured,  half  aloud, — 

"  It  isn't  true — it  can't  be  true. 
Pamela  dying  of  love  for  me !  Old 
women's  tea-table  tattle  !  And  Ger- 
ald has  listened  to  it!  Well,  all 
the  bigger  fool  he.  There  always 
was  a  babyish,  hysterical  streak  in 
Gerald,  despite  his  many  manly  and 
honest  traits!" 

24 


Old  New  York 


M 


II. 

rARK  stood  for  some  time 
on  the  very  verge  of  the 
Battery,  either  watching 
or  seeming  to  watch  the  hazy  blue 
of  the  Staten  Island  hills  and  the 
sparkle  of  the  Narrows  and  the 
glimmering  curve  of  the  Jersey 
coast.  These  looked  then,  no  doubt 
(seventy-five  years  ago),  much  the 
same  as  they  have  often  looked  on 
pleasant  afternoons  of  our  own  later 
springtides.  But  the  bay  was  far 
less  full  of  craft,  and  did  not  show 
a  single  steamboat,  though  thirteen 
years  had  passed  since  Robert  Ful- 
ton's genius  had  caused  the  Cler- 
mont  to  puff  her  triumphant  way 
from  New  York  to  Albany  in  thirty- 
two  hours,  and  now  there  were 
25 


A  Romance  of 


lines  running  between  this  and 
other  ports  in  half  the  time.  On 
Mark's  right  towered  a  structure 
which  has  since  been  dwarfed  into 
Castle  Garden,  but  was  then  Fort 
Clinton,  a  grim  redoubt,  with  black 
muzzles  of  cannon  peering  sea- 
ward through  embrasures  eight  feet 
thick. 

Soon  a  pang  of  pity  assailed 
Mark.  He  veered  round,  changing 
his  view  of  the  merry  and  scintillant 
waters  for  one  of  bowery  and  path- 
woven  arcades.  Just  then  he  saw 
Gerald  approaching  him.  Without 
a  word  spoken  by  either,  the  two 
friends  linked  arms  and  walked 
along  the  main  marine  promenade 
for  some  time  in  complete  silence, 
bowing  now  and  then  to  acquaint- 
ances of  either  sex ;  for  this  was 
the  fashionable  hour  of  strollers  on 
the  Battery,  and  one  bowed,  if  one 
26 


Old  New  York 


had  the  privilege  of  knowing  them, 
to  Beeknians,  Livingstons,  De  Pey- 
sters,  and  other  scions  of  aristoc- 
racy in  a  town  which  numbered 
only  a  hundred  thousand  inhabi- 
tants at  the  most. 

Presently  conversation  was  re- 
sumed between  the  young  men. 
Mark  spoke  cheeringly  of  the 
chances  in  favor  of  Pamela  Ver- 
planck's  recovery,  scoffed  the  idea 
of  her  illness  having  the  sentimental 
origin  assigned  it,  and  counselled 
Gerald,  with  earnest  warmth,  to 
hope  that  the  future  would  smile  on 
his  present  despairing  suit. 

That  evening  he  was  expected  to 
sup  with  the  Verplancks  at  seven 
o'clock.  He  went  to  their  house 
in  a  mood  of  unwonted  depression. 
It  had  deeply  wounded  him  to  learn 
that  so  silly  and  unfounded  a  tale  had 
got  wind  concerning  poor  sick  Pa- 
27 


A  Romance  of 


mela  and  himself.  The  thought  that 
it  might  have  reached  Charlotte's 
ears,  or  those  of  her  father,  filled 
him,  too,  with  embarrassing  dread. 

Charlotte  soon  came  fluttering  to 
meet  him,  in  the  prim,  formal,  colo- 
nial-looking parlor,  with  its  spider- 
legged  hair-cloth  furniture  and  its 
massive  mahogany  doors. 

He  kissed  her  on  one  blooming 
cheek,  but  she  darted  coyly  back- 
ward before  he  could  kiss  the  other. 

"  You're  late,  sir,"  she  said. 
"  Supper's  on  the  table,  and  father 
and  Pamela  and  I  had  almost  given 
you  up.  Dinah's  a  tyrant,  you  know, 
and  always  makes  deliberate  failures 
of  both  her  muffins  and  corn-cakes 
when  she's  asked  to  postpone  them 
a  single  minute.  Father's  said 
'  grace' ;  and,  oh,  I  forgot— Colonel 
Burr  is  supping  with  us  this  even- 
ing, too." 

28 


Old  New  York 


"Colonel  Burr?"  repeated  Mark, 
remembering  his  recent  little  pane- 
gyric of  that  celebrity.  "  And  Char- 
lotte," he  went  on,  "pray  tell  me: 
how  is  your  sister?" 

"A  little  brighter  since  morning, 
I  think." 

"That's  good  news." 

"  She  came  down  to  supper, 
though  somewhat  too  feeble.  I 
believe,  really,  Mark,  that  she  only 
came  because  of  you." 

"  Because  of  me  ?     Nonsense  !" 

"  "Why,  how  uncivilly  you  say 
that.  Are  you  sorry  poor  Pamela 
should  be  glad  to  have  you  come  ?" 

"  Sorry  ?  I  ?  How  absurd,  Char- 
lotte !  Shall  we  go  down,  then  ?" 

The  dining-room  was  in  the  base- 
ment, only  a  few  steps  from  the 
kitchen.  As  she  returned  thither, 
Charlotte  took  her  vacated  place 
at  the  head  of  the  table,  before 
29 


A  Romance  of 


two  high  silver  kettles,  one  for  tea, 
one  for  coffee.  A  turbaned  negress 
was  in  waiting,  with  a  dish  of 
smoking  corn-cakes.  Except  a  plate 
or  two  of  cooling  muffins,  this  was 
the  only  warm  viand.  For  the 
rest,  there  was  cold  sliced  meat, 
marmalade  in  low  heavy  cut-glass 
bowls,  and  a  large  decanter  of  whis- 
key. 

"No  stimulant,  thank  you,  sir," 
Colonel  Burr  was  saying,  while 
Mark  approached  him  with  out- 
stretched hand.  He  was  waving 
away  the  proffered  decanter  with 
his  own  slim  white  hand,  but  he  in- 
stantly reversed  it  in  Mark's  direc- 
tion, and  gave  to  the  young  man  a 
most  cordial  greeting.  Already  the 
belated  guest  had  spoken  a  word  of 
welcome  and  apology  to  both  Pa- 
mela and  her  father. 

"  How  horribly  ill  Pamela  is  look- 
so 


Old  New  York 


ing!"  Mark  thought,  as  he  seated 
himself. 

"  Colonel,"  said  Varick  Verplanck, 
pouring  some  syrup  on  a  corn-cake 
which  he  had  already  carefully  but- 
tered, "  I  have  rarely,  if  ever,  known 
so  abstemious  a  military  man  as 
yourself.  Indeed,  if  you  will  allow 
me  to  say  so,  it  has  for  years  been 
my  experience  that  all  soldiers  are 
rather  liberal  drinkers." 

Aaron  Burr  laughed,  crumbling  a 
bit  of  bread  between  his  shapely, 
womanish  fingers.  "Oh,  sir,"  he 
replied,  "  I'm  no  longer  a  soldier. 
I'm  only  a  poor  struggling  lawyer 
in  a  great  city,  nine-tenths  of 
whose  inhabitants  think  me  the 
most  evil  of  reprobates." 

Charlotte  was  just  then  re-filling 

with  coffee  the  speaker's  third  cup. 

"Colonel    Burr,"     she     exclaimed, 

with  her  bare  arm  curved  over  the 

31 


A  Romance  of 


shining  implement  in  a  way  that 
Mark  silently  adored,  "you  are  the 
last  of  men,  I  should  say,  to  disdain 
the  dignity  of  being  a  soldier.  Only 
the  other  day  somebody  had  the 
impudence  to  tell  me  that  you  had 
played  but  a  minor  part  at  the  siege 
of  Quebec  in  1775.  I  wouldn't  have 
that  for  a  moment.  I  stood  up 
for  you  with  great  valiance,  feeling 
thrice-armed  because  my  quarrel 
was  just." 

"Dear  young  lady,"  said  Burr, 
his  mobile  face  mellowing  into 
an  instant  smile,  "you  make  me 
feel  recompensed  for  one  of  the 
hardest  campaigns  in  all  my  mili- 
tary career. " 

"Pardon  me,  colonel,"  said  Ver- 
planck,  with  a  stately  little  bow. 
"  Our  good  and  great  Washington 
did  that  in  the  succeeding  year, 
half  by  raising  your  rank  and  half 
32 


Old  New  York 


by  seeking  you  as  his  guest  at 
Richmond  Hill." 

"Ah,  sir,"  sighed  Burr,  slowly 
stirring  the  coffee  which  had  now 
reached  him,  "  Washington  labored 
under  the  disadvantage  of  not  being 
one  of  the  most  charming  young 
women  I  have  ever  known,  and 
also  of  serving  his  friends  with 
very  indifferent  coffee — by  no  means 
the  ambrosial  beverage  which  your 
gifted  daughter  has  the  magic  art  of 
brewing." 

"A  very  happy  compliment,  sir," 
laughed  Mark  Frankland,  "but  we 
all  suspect,  I  fear,  that  it  is  paid 
Miss  Charlotte  for  the  modest 
purpose  of  turning  conversation 
away  from  your  brilliant  exploits 
at  Quebec." 

"True,  indeed!"  cried  Charlotte. 
"  I  insisted  that  as  the  aide-de- 
camp of  General  Arnold  you  not 
3  33 


A  Romance  of 


only  fought  with  fine  bravery,  but 
endured  the  severest  privations  in 
that  arduous  winter  march. " 

"  Still  more  might  be  told,"  here 
struck  in  Pamela,  who  was  trifling 
with  her  food  rather  than  eating  it, 
and  whose  glance  kept  haunting 
Mark's  face  in  a  way  that  he  would 
probably  not  have  observed  but 
for  his  late  converse  with  Gerald. 
"When  General  Montgomery  met 
his  heroic  death,"  the  girl  con- 
tinued, "there  among  those  masses 
of  ice  on  the  borders  of  St.  Law- 
rence, Colonel  Burr — or  Major  Burr, 
as  he  was  then  called — caught  the 
body  of  the  fallen  patriot  and  bore 
it  to  shelter  "within  his  own  lines, 
amid  a  shower  of  bullets  from  the 
British  troops." 

"  Brava,  Pamela !"  exclaimed 
Charlotte,  waving  a  teaspoon  in 
applausive  mock  frenzy.  "But 

34 


Old  New  York 


why,  dear  sister,  did  you  not  ad- 
dress Colonel  Burr  while  you  re- 
called in  such  neat  phrase  his  glo- 
rious act  of  courage  ?" 

The  invalid  turned  suddenly  to- 
ward Charlotte  with  a  wild  look  of 
irritation  and  challenge. 

"What  do  you  mean  ?"  she  asked. 

" Why,  only  this,  dear  Pamela: 
all  the  time  you  spoke  you  were 
looking  straight  at  Mark  Frankland, 
yonder,  as  though  he  and  not  Colo- 
nel Burr  were  the  author  of  this 
handsome  historic  deed/' 

" 1— I  didn't  know  .  .  I— I  didn't 
intend,"  stammered  Pamela.  The 
next  moment,  with  twitching  fea- 
tures, she  rose  from  the  table,  in 
evident  disarray.  As  she  hurried 
toward  the  door,  Charlotte  followed 
her.  Both  girls  disappeared,  and 
soon  a  sound  of  sobs  broke  from 
the  outer  hall,  promptly  growing 
35 


A  Romance  of 


fainter  as  if  through  increased  dis- 
tance. 

Mr.  Verplanck  looked  almost  pitia- 
bly embarrassed,  and  presently  said, 
with  apologetic  suavity,  to  Burr, — 

"  My  poor  child's  health  is 
wretchedly  broken.  Pray  forgive 
her  curious  outburst  of  sensitive- 
ness. It  comes  merely  from  shat- 
tered nerves,  poor  Pamela,  and  is 
quite  foreign  to  her  gentle  and  kindly 
nature." 

"As  if  I  did  not  know  that,  my 
dear  Verplanck !"  hastened  Burr, 
with  the  richest  show  of  sympathy. 
He  went  on  speaking,  in  his  fluent 
and  cordial  way;  but  meanwhile 
Verplanck's  look  had  transferred 
itself  to  Mark,  who  almost  guiltily 
lowered  his  own. 

Burr  left  unusually  early,  that 
evening,  being  called  away,  as  he 
stated,  by  the  necessity  of  preparing 
36 


Old  New  York 


a  brief  in  an  imminent  and  urgent 
law-case.  Verplanck  went  with 
him  to  the  front  door  up-stairs,  and 
then  rejoined  Mark  in  the  basement 
dining-room. 

"That  man  is  a  wonder,"  Ver- 
planck said,  after  the  little  silence 
that  ensued  upon  his  return.  "  Can 
I  help  you  to  anything  more,  Frank- 
land  ?" 

"  Nothing  more,  sir,"  said  Mark, 
and  added,  in  the  polite  idiom  of  the 
time,  "  I  have  had  a  great  plenty, 
thank  you — have  supped  most 
heartily  on  your  excellent  victuals." 

"As  I  -was  saying,"  Verplanck 
resumed,  "  Colonel  Burr  is  a  won- 
der. There  in  his  office  just  off 
Broadway  in  Reade  Street,  he  goes 
on  practising  law  and  actually  suc- 
ceeding, in  the  teeth  of  enormous 
debt  and  a  national  unpopularity 
which  is  inveterate." 

37 


A  Romance  of 


Here  Verplanck  rose  again,  and 
brought  his  chair  to  within  a  few 
inches  of  Mark's.  He  had  a  fine, 
cameo-like  face,  to  which  his  high 
stock  lent  distinction.  He  laid  one 
hand  on  Mark's  shoulder  for  a 
moment,  saying  quickly  and  with 
graver  voice, — 

"  But  I  did  not  mean,  now  that 
we  are  alone  together,  to  men- 
tion so  threadbare  a  topic  as  that 
of  poor  Aaron  Burr's  complete 
social  downfall,  or  his  remarkable 
struggle  against  tides  of  disaster. 
The  truth  is,  Frankland,  I  was 
rather  glad  he  made  so  early  a  de- 
parture." 

"  Glad,  Mr.  Verplanck  ?" 

"Yes.  It  gives  me  a  chance  to 
speak  with  frankness  on  a  subject 
very  painful,  and  yet  commandingly 
important.  A  subject,  Frankland, 
that  concerns  my  daughter. " 
38 


Old  New  York 


"Miss  Charlotte  ?"  said  Mark, 
with  a  speed  almost  tumultuous. 

"  No— not  Charlotte.  .  .  You  and 
I  have  spoken  of  her  not  long  ago, 
in  privacy  like  this,  have  we  not  ?" 

"Indeed,  yes,"  replied*  Mark, 
flushing,  and  with  a  fiery  sweetness 
in  tone  and  look.  "  You  have  sanc- 
tioned my  addresses,  dear  sir,  and 
I  am  waiting — with  only  too  much 
eagerness — the  time  when  you  will 
permit  them  to  be  made  public." 

"It  is  not  of  Charlotte  that  I 
wish  to  speak,  but  of  Pamela," 
slowly  said  Verplanck. 

Mark  furtively  gnawed  his  lips. 
"Poor  Miss  Pamela  seems  to  be 
very  sick." 

"  She  is  very  sick."  Envisaging 
Mark  suddenly  with  his  kind,  faded, 
sorrowful  eyes,  Verplanck  went  on  : 
"Yesterday  Dr.  Wainwright  gave 
me  his  final  word.  Our  dear  Pa- 

39 


A  Romance  of 


mela  is  doomed.  It  is  atrophy  of 
the  heart ;  the  end  has  become  cer- 
tain. My  poor  darling  is  wasting 
away  just  as  her  mother  did,  twelve 
years  ago.  I  myself  recognize  the 
symptoms.  Her  mother  was  much 
older  than  Pamela  when  she  went, 
it  is  true.  But  I  can  see  the  same 
forlorn  change,  made  all  the  more 
evident  because  of  an  intense  ma- 
ternal resemblance." 

"Yes,  yes,"  murmured  Mark, 
aimlessly,  and  without  even  the  in- 
terrogative note  in  his  voice.  He 
was  pierced  by  a  peculiar  dread, 
which  he  could  not  explain  and 
could  only  feel. 

"There  is  no  chance,"  pursued 
Verplanck,  "of  saving  my  child's 
life.  But  there  is  a  chance  of  mak- 
ing her  very  happy  during  the  few 
months  -which  now  remain  to  her. 
Charlotte  has  lately  suspected  this 
40 


Old  New  York 


chance.  To  me  its  cheering  possi- 
bility has  become  certain.  Mark 
Frankland,  my  youngest  daughter 
has  fallen  in  love  with  you.  She  is 
passionately  attached  to  you.  It  is 
a  violent  and  absorbing  infatuation. " 

Verplanck  quitted  his  chair,  and 
walked  away,  with  bowed  head. 
Mark  sat  quite  still  for  a  slight 
while.  Then  he  abruptly  rose  and 
met  the  elder  man  as  he  turned  and 
faced  him  in  the  mellow  candle- 
light. 

"You  tell  me  this,  sir,"  he  said, 
with  agitation,  "  and  I  perceive  that 
the  telling  of  it  costs  you  deep  re- 
gret/' 

"  Regret  and  humiliation  both  I" 

"And  your  telling  it  at  all,"  pur- 
sued Mark,  "shows  the  intensity 
of  your  conviction.  Still,  you  may 
be  wrong.  If  you  are " 

"  I  am  not  wrong.  The  thing  is 
41 


A  Romance  of 


beyond  doubt."  Here  Verplanck  for 
a  moment  shrouded  his  face  in  a 
kerchief,  dashing  it  hastily  across 
his  eyes  as  he  again  looked  full  at 
Mark.  "Listen,  my  boy:  Pamela 
has  herself  confessed  to  me  this 
infatuation.  In  a  way,  being  the 
younger,  she  is  my  favorite,  though 
God  knows  I  love  each  daughter 
with  deepest  affection !  I  would 
take  in  Charlotte's  case  no  other 
course  than  I  am  taking  in  hers. 
Yes,  she  has  told  me,  though  in  the 
most  sacred  secrecy.  I  violate  my 
promise  to  her,  and  in  doing  so  I 
firmly  believe,  Frankland,  that  I  am 
telling  the  first  actual  lie  of  my 
whole  life.  Yet  it  is  a  lie  told  in 
the  passionate  fatherly  hope  of 
easing  her  final  hours  on  earth. 
We  will  soon  go  into  the  country, 
as  you  know.  She  loves  the  old 
farm  at  Throgg's  Neck,  so  replete 
42 


Old  New  York 


for  her  with  childish  memories. 
Change  of  scene,  partial  change  of 
air,  may  cause  her  to  rally  a  little 
and  seemingly  improve.  But,  as  I 
have  said,  the  end  is  both  sure  and 
near.  She  cannot  last  through  the 
summer.  Yesterday  she  was  so 
weak  for  hours  that  she  could 
scarcely  lift  a  hand.  Then  youth 
and  native  vitality  conquered  again, 
and  to-day  she  has  been  better. 
Your  expected  coming,  Frankland, 
had  much  to  do  with  this  altered 
state.  Charlotte's  thoughtless 
words,  entirely  innocent,  caused 
the  nervous  shock  that  you  saw. 
And  yet,  as  I  said,  Charlotte  is  not 
ignorant  of  the  truth.  And,  more 
than  this  (as  .  .  as  I  think  I  before 
hinted),  she  is  willing  to  join  with 
me  in  the  request  I  am  now  about 
to  make." 

There    was    silence,    and    Mark 

43 


A  Romance  of 


looked  wonderingly  at  the  pale, 
distressed  face  before  him. 

"  What  request  ?"  he  asked. 

"This,  Frankland,  this."  .  .  And 
then  Verplanck,  with  eager,  plain- 
tive volubility,  spoke  on  for  several 
seconds. 

Mark  sprang  up  from  the  table, 
shocked,  with  darkening  brows. 

"Oh,  no,  no!"  he  exclaimed, 
"  not  that !  Of  all  things,  not  that ! 
Believe  me,  sir,  I  could  not  possibly 
consent!" 


Old  New  York 


III. 

AT  this  same  moment,  after 
hearing  every  "word  that 
Mark  had  just  spoken,  Char- 
lotte slipped  into  the  room.  She 
divined  swiftly  the  motive  of  her 
lover's  flurried  speech.  She  went 
up  to  Verplanck's  side  and  said,  con- 
fronting Mark,  with  a  hand  thrown 
suddenly  about  her  father's  neck, — 

"  I  know  what  it  is  to  which 
you  will  not  consent.  But  pray 
let  me  join  my  entreaty  with 
father's !" 

"It  would  be  hypocrisy,"  shud- 
dered the  young  man. 

"  Hypocrisy,"  Charlotte  urged, 
"in  a  merciful  cause!" 

"  It  would  ease  that  poor  child's 
last  hours,"  pleaded  Verplanck, 
45 


A  Romance  of 


"  far  beyond  any  comfort  that  could 
reach  her." 

"And  no  one  but  we  three,"  per- 
sisted Charlotte,  "  would  ever  know 
the  truth." 

"The  truth!"  Mark  echoed,  for- 
lornly. "  Call  it,  rather,  the  false- 
hood!" 

Charlotte's  face  hardened  a  little. 
"It  would  be  justifiable,"  she  said. 
"You  could  do  it  for  my  sake,  if 
you  chose,  as  a  sacrifice." 

"I  would  make,  for  you,"  pro- 
tested Mark,  "almost  any  sacri- 
fice." 

"Make  this,  then,"  said  Ver- 
planck,  with  melancholy  sternness. 

"Make  this,  then,"  said  Char- 
lotte, echoing  her  father  with  ten- 
der emphasis. 

"Soil  my  honor,"  faltered  Mark, 
half  as  if  to  his  own  thoughts, 
"by  asking  a  woman  to  be  my 
46 


Old  New  York 


wife  whom  I  do  not  love  and 
whom  I  have  no  intention  of  mar- 
ry ing  ?" 

"Ah,  if  you  put  it  that  way!" 
sighed  Verplanck. 

"And  you  need  not  put  it  that 
way,"  fervidly  supplemented  Char- 
lotte. "Tell  yourself,  instead,  that 
you  would  be  acting  a  merciful  part 
to  a  dying  girl !" 

Mark  moved  away.  Verplanck's 
eyes  and  those  of  his  daughter 
followed  him  as  he  passed,  with 
lowered  head,  to  the  opposite  end 
of  the  room.  Abruptly  he  paused, 
turned,  and  then  said, — 

"  Pamela  has  always  been  capri- 
cious since  a  little  girl.  You  both 
know  how  many  were  her  whims 
and  how  quickly  they  would  alter. 
I  think  you  both  exaggerate,  in  your 
love  and  pity  for  her,  this  new 
fancy.  Not  long  ago  she  was  all 

47 


A  Romance  of 


smiles  to  poor  Gerald  Suydam. 
Suddenly  she  chose  to  treat  him 
with  great  coolness.  The  year 
before  last,  if  I  err  not,  she  would 
scarcely  notice  Colonel  Burr ;  now, 
as  we  have  lately  witnessed,  she 
cannot  hold  him  in  too  high  esteem. 
I — I  feel  confident,"  finished  Mark, 
dashing  out  these  latter  words  with 
impetuous  force,  "that  this  is  a 
mere  mood,  and  will  vanish  as 
quickly  as  it  came." 

"  It  will  only  vanish  with  her 
death,"  sighed  Verplanck. 

Charlotte  looked  at  Mark  with 
every  sign  of  its  old  sweetness 
gone  from  her  face. 

"Very  well,  then,"  she  said. 
"  If  you  think  like  this  you  cannot 
be  persuaded, — that  is  all." 

"Yes,"  Verplanck  sighed,  "that 
is  all."  He  went  up  to  Mark  and 
held  out  his  hand.  He  was  very 
48 


Old  New  York 


pale,  and  the  hand  that  Mark  took 
felt  strangely  cold.  "  I  don't  deny 
what  you've  just  said,  Frankland, 
my  boy.  She's  been  a  perfect 
will-o'-the-wisp  for  changeability, 
whimsicality,  ever  since  she  was 
five  years  old " 

"No,  father " 

"Yes,  Charlotte,  it's  true.  And 
what  we  ask  is  not  merely  difficult 
— it's  ridiculous.  Now  that  he  re- 
fuses, as  I  suppose  any  sensible 
man  would,  I  begin  to  see  its  entire 
absurdity."  He  gave  a  wistful,  apol- 
ogetic glance  at  Mark.  "  Good-night. 
Pardon  a  father  who  spoke  far  more 
from  his  paternal  fondness,  anxiety, 
sense  of  coming  bereavement,  than 
from  the  rational  stand-point  of 
which  you  have  reminded  him." 
And  before  Mark  could  find  even  a 
fragmentary  sentence  of  response, 
Verplanck  had  quitted  the  room. 

4  49 


A  Romance  of 


Charlotte,  however,  remained, 
and  hardly  ten  minutes  had  elapsed 
when  Mark  was  informing  her  that 
she  deported  herself  like  the  most 
unfeeling  termagant. 

Then  their  first  real  quarrel  oc- 
curred. "Very  well,"  said  Char- 
lotte; "termagants  oughtn't  to 
marry." 

Mark  burst  into  a  laugh.  "  Oh, 
Charlotte !  Was  there  ever  such  a 
situation?  You  threaten  to  break 
our  troth  because  I  will  not  make 
love  to  another  woman  !" 

"You  must  not  speak  like  that," 
fumed  Charlotte,  "of  my  poor, 
dying  sister!  It's — it's — grossly 
disrespectful." 

"  How  is  it,  in  the  name  of  common 
sense  ?  To  call  her  another  woman  ? 
Certainly  she  isn't  another  man." 

"  Now  you're  horribly  flippant — 
and  cruel,  besides !" 
50 


Old  New  York 


"  Charlotte,  my  dear  girl,  do  be 
sensible !" 

"  I'm  human — if  that's  what  you 
mean  by  not  being  sensible." 

"  It  strikes  me  that  you're  in- 
human,  toward  myself." 

"  I'm  not  speaking  of  you  or 
thinking  of  you.  I'm  speaking  and 
thinking  of  poor,  dear  Pamela." 

"  But  you're  asking  me  to  behave 
like  the  most  insincere  of  mortals." 

"Oh,  yes,  I  know.  You  can 
phrase  it  that  way,  if  you  please." 

"  Phrase  it  that  way  !  But  I  don't 
want  to  conduct  myself  that  way." 

"You  ought  to  want  to — under 
the  circumstances.  All  men  can, 
if  they  choose." 

"What  a  magnificent  revelation 
of  your  faith  in  our  sex  !  So  we're 
all  rascals  at  heart,  are  we  ?  I'm 
glad  to  learn  you  have  so  lofty  an 
opinion  of  us." 

51 


A  Romance  of 


Charlotte  began  to  weep.  "The 
more  I  see  of  your  sex,"  she 
quavered,  "the  loftier  seem  your 
opinions  of  yourselves." 

Her  tears  troubled  Mark  very 
much.  They  troubled  him  more  as 
they  continued  to  flow.  He  went 
near  to  her  and  touched  one  of  her 
firm,  ivory  wrists,  and  told  her  that 
it  broke  his  heart  to  see  her  weep. 
She  at  once  put  the  wrist  behind 
her  back,  and  receded  a  little,  and 
answered  to  the  effect  that  his 
heart  was  an  organ  whose  brittle- 
ness  he  entirely  misrepresented. 
He  endeavored  to  argue  this  point 
with  her,  mildly  and  very  miser- 
ably, and  at  last,  with  a  volcanic 
desperation,  exclaimed, — 

"Oh,   very  well!     I'll   be   goose 

enough,  traitor  enough,  to  attempt 

this      idiotic      masquerade !       But 

heaven  help  me  to  carry  it  through 

52 


Old  New  York 


in  any  other  than  the  most  bungling 
fashion  !  Oh,  I  promise  you  I'll  cut 
a  pretty  figure  !  And  pray  how  will 
you  like  it  if  you  see  me  hugging 
Pamela  with  all  my  might,  and 
swearing  to  her  eternal  devotion  ?" 

"Pamela,"  frowned  Charlotte, 
"  is  far  too  much  of  an  invalid  to  be 
hugged!  You  must  behave  very 
carefully.  You  must  recollect  the 
delicate  state  of  her  health." 

"How  delightful!"  he  groaned. 
"  Go  on,  please,  with  your  in- 
structions." 

She  fluttered  to  him,  and,  with 
the  nodding  head-movement  of  a 
bird,  kissed  him  lightly  and  swiftly 
on  either  cheek. 

"I  knew  you'd  consent!"  Her 
own  cheeks  were  roses,  her  eyes 
were  liquid  stars.  "  Now  you're 
my  own  dear  Mark  again  !" 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  objected, 
53 


A  Romance  of 


with  sarcastic  calm ;  "  I've  become 
Pamela's  dear  Mark." 

He  slept  very  ill  that  night,  and 
informed  his  father,  the  next  day, 
that  he  felt  too  unwell  to  appear  at 
the  "store."  His  father,  who  had 
been  often  accused  by  strait-laced 
acquaintances  of  indulging  him 
foolishly,  at  once  grew  worried  and 
advised  his  son  by  all  means  to 
leave  ledgers  and  accounts  alone 
and  get  as  many  hours  as  he  could 
in  the  open  air. 

"  It's  a  fine  day,  Mark,"  said  Ezra 
Frankland,  "finer  than  yesterday." 
The  old  merchant  had  lost  three 
children  before  their  mother  died. 
Mark,  the  last  left,  was  the  apple  of 
his  eye.  "You  might  go  up  in  the 
country — say  as  far  as  the  canal. 
It's  pleasant  and  shady  up  there,  by 
this  time.  You  could  drop  in  at 
your  aunt  Elizabeth's  place  and  get 

54 


Old  New  York 


dinner.  She'd  be  mighty  glad  to 
see  you." 

The  "canal"  was  where  Canal 
Street  now  roars  with  traffic.  It 
had  been,  until  1809,  or  thereabouts, 
the  famed  Collect  Pond,  a  pictu- 
resque resort  of  boating  parties  in 
summer  and  skaters  in  winter.  It 
was  now  transformed  into  a  broad 
canal,  with  paved  streets  and  lines 
of  trees  on  either  side.  Mark  might 
easily  have  gone  thither  by  stage- 
coach, but  he  preferred  to  avoid  a 
haunt  consecrated,  in  former  times, 
by  many  happy  strolls  with  Char- 
lotte. 

The  thing  that  he  had  consented 
to  do  filled  him  with  sorrowful  dis- 
may. His  honest  nature  revolted 
from  it;  the  thought  of  its  odious 
coming  experience  darkened  the 
blue  May  sky  over  Bowling  Green, 
and  gave  to  the  familiar  dormer- 
55 


A  Romance  of 


windowed      brick      houses      along 
Broadway  a  dreary,  alien  look. 

He  loitered  up  past  Trinity 
Church,  at  whose  doors,  not  many 
years  before,  Gouverneur  Morris 
had  delivered  to  an  immense  con- 
course his  impassioned  funeral 
eulogy  over  the  bier  of  Hamilton. 
Prim,  colonial,  and  in  spots  village- 
like,  the  town  gave  no  prophecy  of 
those  prodigious  changes  which 
awaited  it.  How  Mark  would  have 
marvelled  and  thrilled  if  for  a  few 
instants  all  should  have  been  fore- 
shadowed to  him  as  the  future  des- 
tined it, — a  monstrous  post-office 
looming  from  the  placid  lower  angle 
of  City  Hall  Park ;  huge  sky-scrap- 
ing structures  upheaving  themselves 
in  Printing  House  Square;  legions 
of  massive  edifices  shutting  out  all 
view  of  either  Hudson  or  East 
River;  Wall  Street  growing  in  a 
56 


Old  New  York 


trice  from  drowsy  quietude  to  bustle 
and  tumult ;  the  hubbub  of  countless 
vehicles  deafening  one's  ears ;  the 
clangor  of  the  cable  cars  blending 
with  thunders  from  elevated  trains; 
the  wider  thoroughfares  vying  in 
their  streams  of  pedestrianism  with 
the  peaceful  side-streets ;  and  human 
life  everywhere  intensifying  itself, 
materializing  itself,  making  itself  an 
imperious,  vivid,  unavoidable  domi- 
nance ! 

In  his  perplexity  and  depression 
he  somehow  thought  of  Aaron  Burr, 
and  soon  drifted  into  a  little  dingy 
pair  of  rooms  on  Reade  Street,  not 
far  from  where  the  old  white  marble 
Stewart  building  now  stands.  Mark 
was  always  sure  of  a  glad  welcome 
•when  he  crossed  the  threshold  of 
this  office,  which  thousands  of  his 
countrymen  would  have  deemed 
their  feet  soiled  by  touching. 

57 

Jam  * 


A  Romance  of 


Burr,  seated  before  a  broad  table 
loaded  with  papers  and  books,  rose 
and  cordially  clasped  the  hand  of 
his  young  friend.  The  next  mo- 
ment he  turned  toward  a  man  who 
had  been  stationed  at  his  elbow  as 
Mark  appeared.  The  man's  attire 
was  not  of  the  choicest,  but  he  had 
an  honest,  intelligent  look. 

"This  bill,  colonel,  has  been  run- 
ning a  good  while. " 

Burr  laid  a  hand  on  his  arm. 
"I  know  it,  my  good  fellow,"  he 
answered,  with  a  faint  shrug  and 
the  most  sympathetic  of  smiles. 
"  But,  alas  !  the  well  is  dry  to-day." 
Here  he  pointed  to  a  square  hole 
made  of  piled  books  in  the  centre 
of  the  table,  and  then  suddenly 
dove  a  searching  hand  into  its 
hollow. 

"  Bless  my  soul ! — not  a  dollar 
left !  I  don't  see  how  my  well  got 
58 


Old  New  York 


so  dry  as  soon  as  this.  I  received 
quite  a  sum  of  money  two  or  three 
days  ago.  But  people  came  to  me 
with  all  sorts  of  piteous  stories. 
Those  are  nearly  the  only  kinds  of 
people,  except  my  few  clients,  who 
do  come  nowadays.  And  I  must 
have  .  .  er  .  .  miscalculated  the 
amount  of  .  .  er  .  .  water  that  my 
poor  little  well  contained." 

"  I  should  very  much  like  to  have 
the  money  this  morning,  colonel/' 
persisted  the  man,  in  a  voice  urgent 
yet  low. 

"  So  sorry  .  .  so  sorry,  my  friend ! 
Come  again  in  a  few  days.  There's 
no  telling  but  what  you  may  find 
me  a  perfect  Crcesus  then.  No 
telling,  I  assure  you." 

A   few  more  words   were   inter- 
changed between  debtor  and  creditor 
before  the    latter  at   length    reluc- 
tantly took  his  leave. 
59 


A  Romance  of 


Burr  turned,  with  his  most 
charming  smile,  to  Mark.  "You 
know  about  my  well,  don't  you?" 
he  said,  motioning  for  his  guest  to 
be  seated. 

"Yes,"  smiled  Mark;  "you've 
told  me  about  it.  Ah,  colonel,  if 
you'll  let  me  say  so,  it's  strange 
that  a  man  of  your  great  powers 
should  be  such  a  child  in  money 
matters!" 

"You  may  say  to  me  anything 
you  please,  my  dear  Mark.  You 
may  scold  me  as  much  as  you  like. 
By  the  Eternal,  as  my  stanch  old 
friend  Andrew  Jackson  is  wont  to 
swear,  I  deserve  a  sound  flogging 
very  often  for  my  improvidence  !" 

"  Your  well,  as  you  name  it,  colo- 
nel, has  no  doubt  been  dried  up  by 
charities.  You're  the  most  chari- 
table man  I've  ever  known." 

"Yes,  my  boy — immorally  so. 
60 


Old  New  York 


I  give  what  belongs  to  others!" 
Here  Burr  sighed ;  then,  with  return 
of  the  brisk  sparkle  which  had  briefly 
left  his  dark  blue  eyes, — 

"  Pray,  to  what  do  I  owe  the 
honor  of  this  visit?  You  look 
troubled.  Gad,  I  hope  you've  got 
into  some  scrape  that  I  can  legally 
pull  you  out  of!  I  like  dealing  with 
you  sons  of  rich  merchants."  And 
here  he  laughed  his  mellow,  con- 
tagious laugh.  "You're  sheep,  sir, 
worth  the  pleasure  of  shearing." 

"  I  haven't  got  into  any  scrape  of 
that  sort,  colonel." 

"Then  it's  a  woman — I'll  be 
bound  it's  a  woman,  you  sly  young 
blade  !"  And  Burr  gave  his  visitor 
a  sharp  slap  on  the  thigh.  "  If  so, 
Mark,  you're  devilish  sensible  to 
come  to  an  old  veteran  sinner  like 
me." 

"  Don't    paint   yourself   in    black 

01 


A  Romance  of 


colors,  colonel.  I  won't  have  you 
do  so  even  in  jest.  .  .  Yes,"  added 
Mark,  with  a  solemn  little  nod,  "  it 
is  a  woman."  And  then  he  told 
something  that  made  his  listener's 
fine  face  both  pale  and  darken. 

"How  extraordinary  !"  burst  from 
Burr,  when  he  had  ended. 

"  You — you  think,  sir,  I  am  wrong 
in  having  consented?" 

"  Wrong  ?  In  the  name  of  decent 
compassion,  no  !  Poor  Verplanck  ! 
poor  Charlotte !  and  ah,  poor  Pa- 
mela !  What  a  situation  !  Zounds  ! 
somebody  ought  to  put  it  on  the 
stage  and  play  it  over  at  the  Park 
Theatre  !  Ah,  no,  no — I  don't  mean 
that,  my  boy — I  don't  mean  any- 
thing so  heartless!"  Tears  stood 
in  the  speaker's  eyes — those  eyes 
which  had  blazed  in  battle,  which 
had  helped  the  oratoric  art  of  their 
possessor  to  electrify  listening 
62 


Old  New  York 


senates.  "Bravo,  my  dear  Mark! 
Your  resolve  has  just  the  right 
note  in  it — a  note  of  chivalry  all 
the  surer  because  so  difficult,  so  un- 
usual, so  austere !  I  don't  wonder 
you  found  it  hard  to  consent. 
Pamela's  a  chameleon,  as  you've 
just  hinted.  But  all  her  volatile, 
mutable  frivolity  becomes  sancti- 
fied, now,  by  the  nearness  of  death. 
Good  God!  what  a  love-test!  But 
you'll  stand  it — you'll  carry  it  to  a 
mournfully  triumphant  end.  I,  for 
one,  trust  you.  And  as  for  blessing 
you,  I  leave  that  to  her  father  and 
sister — especially  the  last !  Don't 
waver  in  the  least.  I've  seen  life ; 
I  know  women.  And,  believe  me, 
Charlotte  will  love  you  all  the 
better  in  years  to  come  for  having 
served  her  with  so  splendid  a 
loyalty!1' 


A  Romance  of 


IV. 

AARON  BURR'S  encomium 
and  encouragement  dwelt 
stimulatingly  with  Mark  for 
a  good  while  after  he  had  gone 
forth  again  into  the  glad  spring 
weather  from  those  dismal  and  al- 
most poverty-stricken  little  cham- 
bers fronting  the  old  City  Hall.  His 
nerves  were  still  in  a  state  of  marked 
disquiet,  however,  since  the  ordeal 
of  his  coming  dissimulation  was  to 
begin  that  same  afternoon.  He 
stopped  at  a  tobacconist's  shop 
below  the  American  Museum  on  the 
corner  of  Ann  Street,  and  bought  a 
few  cigars  of  fairly  good  quality — the 
best  which  he  could  procure — at  four 
cents  apiece.  He  lit  one  of  them, 
and  stood  looking  up  abstractedly  at 
64 


Old  New  York 


the  impossible  animals  painted  on 
wooden  ovals  and  dotting  the  entire 
facade  of  the  spacious  building. 

"Oh,  it's  you,  Mark?"  said  a 
voice ;  and,  turning,  he  beheld  Ger- 
ald Suydam. 

"Good-morning,"  replied  Mark. 
"  You're  at  leisure,  like  me  ?" 

"  No,  indeed,"  returned  Gerald, 
as  they  walked  southward  in  mu- 
tually accepted  company.  "  Father 
sent  me  up  to  Pearl  Street  about  a 
bill  of  lading.  He's  a  good  deal 
stricter  with  me,  as  you  know,  than 
yours  is  with  you.  He  says  he  was 
brought  up  not  to  shirk  business,  or 
Suydam,  Van  Horn  &  Co.  wouldn't 
be  the  merchants  they  are  to-day. 
I  suppose  he's  right.  But  I  often 
wish  he  were  as  lax  and  complai- 
sant as  your  father  is." 

"  Oh,  dad  knows  how  to  scold, 
sometimes." 

5  65 


A  Romance  of 


Gerald  laughed.  "  I  wonder  what 
mine  would  say  if  he  saw  me  smok- 
ing a  cigar  in  the  street.  .  .  And,  by 
the  bye,  Mark,  isn't  it  a  little  daring 
of  you?" 

"Daring?     Humbug !" 

"Well,  you  know/1  demurred 
Gerald,  with  an  assertive  head-toss, 
"  folks  will  talk." 

"Oh,  I  know,  yes." 

"  Three-quarters  of  your  male  ac- 
quaintance, in  your  own  rank  of  life, 
think  that  for  a  man  of  your  age  to 
smoke  a  cigar  during  business  hours 
is  an  act  of  gross  dissipation.  Here 
comes  old  Mr.  Ludlow  Vanderveer. 
I  can  see  the  look  of  horror  gather- 
ing on  his  puckered  little  face." 

"I  shall  pretend  I  don't  see  it," 
said  Mark,  a  trifle  sullenly — "or  its 
owner,  either."  After  moving  on  a 
few  more  yards,  however,  he  threw 
away  his  cigar.  "The  fact  is,  Ger- 

66 


Old  New  York 


aid,"  he  continued,  "  I'm  a  good  deal 
upset ;  I  feel  like  having  something 
to  soothe  me — and  I  don't  take  big 
sly  draughts  of  Jamaica  rum,  as 
they  say  Mr.  Ludlow  Vanderveer 
does.  A  rather  nasty  thing  has 
happened  to  me  since  I  saw  you 
yesterday,  Gerald.  It  concerns  our 
recent  talk,  too.  I  don't  know  that 
I  ought  to  tell  it  you.  I — I  meant 
to  tell  scarcely  a  soul.  But  I'll  let 
you  know  it  if  you  give  me  your 
solemn  oath  that  you'll  keep  it  the 
deadest  of  secrets." 

With  curiosity  instantly  roused, 
Gerald  hesitated,  nevertheless,  to 
engage  in  so  momentous  a  compact. 
He  was  excessively  conscientious, 
and  had  a  strong  streak  of  piety  be- 
sides; he  had  once  seriously  thought 
of  studying  for  the  ministry. 

"  Oh,  very  well,"  said  Mark,  with 
pitiless  disregard  of  his  reluctance, 
67 

* 


A  Romance  of 


"perhaps  it's  better  I  did  not  tell 
you.  After  all,  it  might  only  make 
you  unhappy. " 

This  was  too  much  for  Gerald, 
and  he  soon  agreed  to  face  the  full 
profanity  of  the  "solemn  oath." 
When  he  had  made  complete  ac- 
quiescence, Mark  divulged  his  im- 
portant tidings. 

The  recital  caused  Gerald  to  turn 
pale  as  paper.  "You're  shocked," 
said  Mark,  watching  him. 

"I'm  horrified,"  came  the  gasped 
answer. 

"You  think  me  wrong,  then,  to 
have  consented?" 

"  Unspeakably  wrong !" 

For  a  moment  Mark  forgot  him- 
self. 

"  I've  just  been  talking  it  all  over 
with  an  older  and  much  wiser  man 
than  you  are.  Colonel  Burr  thinks 
the  act  heroic  in  its  mercy." 

68 


Old  New  York 


"  Aaron  Burr  may  think  so  !"  ex- 
claimed Gerald,  with  haughty  in- 
tolerance. "And  I  dare  say  he  is 
much  wiser  than  I  am.  But,  oh, 
Mark!"  and  here  the  young  man's 
voice  for  a  moment  failed  him, 
"  why — why  did  you  tell  it  me  at 
all  ?  The  girl  I  love !  you  know 
how  dearly  I  have  loved  her,  and 
love  her  still !  And  to  dream  of  de- 
ceiving her  so  terribly  !  It's  ghastly 
— it's  unpardonable.  The  fact  that 
she  is  dying  makes  it  all  the  more 
so. . .  Mark,  Mark,  I — I  am  ashamed 
of  you !" 

And  with  glittering  eyes  and  steps 
that  reeled  unsteadily,  Gerald  hur- 
ried from  his  friend,  who  stood 
staring  after  him,  half  in  anger,  half 
in  self-reproach. 


A  Romance  of 


V. 

"W   DON'T  want  to  go  into  the 
country  at  all  this  summer!" 

JL  exclaimed  Pamela  Verplanck, 
a  few  days  later,  to  her  sister  Char- 
lotte. "  It  will  be  such  a  long, 
horrid  journey  for  him  to  take  every 
day  from  the  city  by  stagecoach." 

"Couldn't  you  get  along,"  asked 
Charlotte,  "with  his  coming  three 
times  a  week?" 

"  No.  I  must  see  him  every  day. 
I'll  speak  to  father  about  our  not 
leaving.  He'll  consent ;  he  does 
anything  I  ask,  now  I'm  so  sick." 
Here  Pamela  leaned  forward  in  her 
easy-chair  and  took  a  little  hand- 
mirror  from  a  side  table.  "  Char- 
lotte," she  presently  said. 

"Well,  Pamela." 
70 


Old  New  York 


"  Don't  you  think  I  look  rather 
better  than  I  did?"  She  turned 
away  from  the  mirror  and  almost 
avidly  scanned  Charlotte's  fair  and 
healthful  face  with  her  own  haggard, 
glassy  eyes. 

Charlotte  was  sewing  industri- 
ously at  some  useful  fabric.  Like 
nearly  all  the  ladies  of  her  land  and 
time,  young  or  old,  she  rarely  plied 
her  needle,  except  in  company,  at 
lighter  decorative  tasks. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  not  meaning  a 
word,  "you  do  look  better,  I  think." 
Then  she  added,  very  sweetly, 
"And  you  feel  stronger,  do  you 
not?" 

"  I  feel  happier,  and  there's  so 
much  in  that !  It  has  been  such  a 
strange,  delicious  surprise  to  me, 
this  realization  that  Mark  wants  me 
for  his  wife !  And  to  think,  Char- 
lotte, how  I  always  suspected — 
71 


A  Romance  of 


always  believed,  in  fact— that  he  pre- 
ferred^^/ I  asked  him  about  this 
yesterday/' 

"  Did  you  ?"  said  Charlotte,  stitch- 
ing away. 

"Yes;  and  he  laughed,  and  an- 
swered— what  do  you  think  he 
answered?'1 

"  I'm  sure  I  don't  know,  Pamela 
dear." 

"Perhaps  I  shouldn't  tell  you;  it 
may  annoy  you.  But  never  mind ; 
you're  not  sick  like  me ;  you  won't 
bother  about  it." 

"Tell  me  what  Mark  said,"  Char- 
lotte gently  urged.  She  had  let  her 
work  fall  unheeded  in  her  lap. 

"He  said,"  hesitated  Pamela, 
"that  .  .  that — well,  Charlotte,  that 
he  had  always  somehow  felt  you 
were  cut  out  for  an  old  maid." 

Charlotte's  needle  was  now  mak- 
ing quick,  diligent  plunges.  She  had 
72 


Old  New  York 


lowered  her  face  a  little,  perhaps  to 
hide  its  insurgent  wave  of  color. 

That  evening  she  met  Mark  soon 
after  he  arrived.  "  How  is  your 
sister?'*  he  at  once  asked. 

"  Her  spirits  are  greatly  im- 
proved. " 

"Your  own  do  not  seem  exactly 
buoyant. " 

Charlotte  gnawed,  for  a  moment, 
her  rosy  underlip.  "  I  don't  think 
it  quite  good  taste  in  you,"  she 
presently  said,  "to  tell  Pamela  I 
was  cut  out  for  an  old  maid." 

Mark  started.  "Did  I  tell  her 
that  ?  Oh,  yes,  I  believe  I  did." 

"You  believe  you  did!"  bristled 
Charlotte.  "  Of  course  you're  very 
well  aware  that  you  did  !  And  you 
might  not  have  said  anything  quite 
so  hateful  about  me." 

"  But  I'm  not  inventive,  Char- 
lotte." 

73 


A  Romance  of 


"  It  seems  to  me  that  you  are, 
Mark — very !" 

"  I'm  not  used  to  this  sort  of 
dreadful  deception.  I  naturally 
say  the  first  thing  (in  the  way  of  a 
falsehood)  that  comes  into  my 
head." 

Charlotte  looked  unpacified.  "You 
need  not  have  uttered,  then,  quite 
so  glaring  a  falsehood — that's  all." 

Mark  smothered  something  de- 
cidedly like  an  oath.  "  I  warned 
you  that  I'd  make  a  botch  of  the 
whole  abominable  affair." 

"  Hush !  She  may  be  listen- 
ing." 

"  I  don't  care  if  she  is ;  I  wish 
she  were!"  he  growled,  quite 
wildly. 

"Mark!" 

"  Oh,  you're  not  so  haughty,  now. 
I've  frightened  away  your  dudgeon, 
have  I?" 

74 


Old  New  York 


Charlotte  drew  herself  up.  "  I 
didn't  think  you  could  be  so  cow- 
ardly/' she  flung  at  him. 

"  No ;  neither  did  I.  Nor  so  de- 
ceitful, either.  And  instead  of  get- 
ting encouragement  from  you,  the 
arch-conspirator  (for  I'm  certain  you 
set  your  father  up  to  this  whole  un- 
canny game),  I  receive  reprimands 
and  reproaches.  It's  too  frightfully 
unjust.  I  can't  endure  it — I  won't 
endure  it— there !" 

"  Mark,"  implored  Charlotte,  "  for 
my  sake,  persevere  !"  She  was  now 
all  clemency  and  contrition.  "  Re- 
member, it  will  be  only  for  so  short 
a  time!" 

"  But  you  won't  even  let  me  kiss 
you  while  it  continues  !" 

"No:  that  seems  too  much  like 
hypocrisy." 

"But,  in  the  name  of  the   Lord 
Almighty,  what  is  it  already?" 
75 


A  Romance  of 


"  Don't  swear,  Mark,  please.  It's 
a  .  .  a  splendid  piece  of  self-sacri- 
fice. Recollect  how  Colonel  Burr 
regarded  it." 

"And  how  did  Gerald  Suydam 
regard  it  ?" 

"  You  should  never  have  told  him 
at  all.  I  was  thoroughly  right  in 
scolding  you  for  doing  so." 

"  Of  course  ;  you're  always  thor- 
oughly right  in  scolding  me,"  wailed 
Mark;  "and  you've  done  nothing 
else,  whenever  we've  been  alone 
together,  since  this  hideous  business 
began." 

Charlotte  benignly  patted  him  on 
the  shoulder.  "  I'll  try  to  be  more 
self-controlled  in  the  future,"  she 
murmured.  And  then  she  opened 
the  gates  of  heaven  to  him  by 
giving  him  a  smile  that  bathed  all 
her  face  in  tender  glory  and  made 
her  dimples  glow  for  him  like  stars 
76 


Old  New  York 


and  rosebuds  magically  mixed. 
"There,  now;  be  good  and  brave 
and  noble.  Go  upstairs  and  see 
poor  dear  Pamela.  In  a  little  while 
supper  will  be  ready.  "We're  going 
to  have  waffles " 

"  I  detest  waffles.  They  never 
agree  with  me." 

"  Then  you  needn't  eat  these.  / 
mixed  them,  though,  in  the  kitchen, 
with  my  own  hands." 

"Then  I'll  devour  twenty!"  He 
tried  to  slip  an  arm  about  her  waist, 
but  she  darted  backward  and  raised 
a  monitory  finger.  .  . 

May  ended,  that  year,  with  a 
few  days  of  our  proverbial  New 
York  heat,  but  June  proved  delight- 
fully salubrious.  Dr.  Wainwright 
scowled  a  little  when  Mr.  Ver- 
planck  informed  him  that  his  invalid 
daughter  was  obstinately  adverse 
to  leaving  town.  Then,  after  a 
77 


A  Romance  of 


slight  interval  of  seeming  medita- 
tion, the  doctor  suddenly  shrugged 
his  shoulders  and  said,  with  crisp 
brevity, — 

"  Oh,  very  well.  Let  her  have 
her  own  way." 

"Poor  child !"  lamented  Ver- 
planck.  "  You  mean,  of  course, 
doctor,  that  the  end  is  so  near " 

"  No,"  interrupted  the  other,  with 
sharp,  unexpected  dissent,  "  I  don't 
mean  anything  of  the  sort."  Then 
he  spoke  a  few  more  words  that 
caused  his  hearer's  face  to  light  up 
with  eager  gladness. 

"  Why,  doctor,  you  can't  possibly 
imply  .  .  ?" 

"  It's  no  implication,  Mr.  Ver- 
planck,"  was  the  rather  stiff  retort. 
"  It's  an  assertion,  as  far  as  it  goes, 
and  you  may  take  it  for  what  it's 
worth." 

"  But,"  almost  panted  Verplanck, 
78 


Old  New  York 


"  it  seems  to  go  very  far  and  to  be 
worth  a  great  deal." 

"Your  daughter,  sir,  has  decidedly 
improved.  That  is  all  I  dare  to 
state  at  present." 

"  But  you  stated  (and  Dr.  Wilton, 
in  consultation  "with  you,  also 
stated)  that  my  darling's  heart  was 
fatally  diseased." 

"/  never  stated  it,  sir.  Wilton 
did,  I  think.  But  please  don't  tell 
Wilton  either  that  I  stated  he  stated 
it  or  that  I  myself  didn't  state  it." 
Here  Dr.  Wainwright,  who  had  a 
large  good-humored  mouth,  closed 
his  lips  in  morose  compression. 
The  next  moment  he  grumblingly 
pursued,  "  Wilton  and  I  have  known 
one  another  forty  years,  and  we're 
the  best  of  friends.  But  we  aver- 
age one  severe  professional  quarrel 
every  six  months.  There's  no  use 
in  adding  to  the  number."  And 
79 


A  Romance  of 


very    soon    afterward    Dr.    Wain- 
wright  took  his  leave. 

Verplanck  was  so  thrilled  with 
happy  hope  that  for  several  hours 
he  went  about  his  various  duties 
in  a  kind  of  delicious  daze.  From 
this  pleasant  condition  Charlotte 
rudely  roused  him,  however,  by 
the  tidings  that  Pamela  had  had 
another  of  her  weak  seizures  while 
Mark  was  reading  aloud  to  her 
from  Moore's  "  Lalla  Rookh" — a 
work  then  in  great  vogue  among 
sweethearts  of  both  the  "mother 
country"  and  our  own. 


80 


Old  New  York 


VI. 

BUT  Pamela's  illness  proved 
transient.  The  next  day  she 
was  decidedly  better,  and 
remained  thus  all  through  the  fol- 
lowing week,  during  which  the 
thermometer  stood  so  high  that  it 
filled  Vauxhall  Garden,  up  town 
between  Broadway  and  the  Bowery 
and  partly  on  the  site  of  the  present 
Astor  Library,  with  citizens  who 
came  to  take  cooling  drinks  there 
and  hear  the  playing  of  the  band. 

"I  really  think/'  said  Mark  to 
Charlotte,  one  day,  "  that  you  ought 
to  use  your  influence  with  her  on  the 
subject  of  going  to  Throgg's  Neck/' 

"  I  haven't  any  influence,"  replied 
Charlotte.  "  Nobody  has,  nowa- 
days, except  you." 

6  81 


A  Romance  of 


Mark  suppressed  a  groan,  "  But 
it  would  let  me  '  off  duty*  a  little." 

"  Do  you  find  your  '  duty'  so 
tedious  ?" 

"You  know  very  well  that  I 
wouldn't  endure  doing  it  at  all  but 
for  these  occasional  stolen  inter- 
views with  you." 

"  At  Throgg's  Neck/'  said  Char- 
lotte, with  maddening  sedateness, 
"you  wouldn't  see  me  half  as  often 
as  you  see  me  now." 

"True,"  he  blustered,  "but  how 
do  I  see  you  now  ?  As  if  I  were  a 
prisoner  up  at  the  jail  near  Chatham 
Row,  and  you  were  allowed  some- 
times to  dawn  on  me  before  the 
gratings  of  my  cell.  .  .  By  the  way, 
it  strikes  me  that  Pamela  is  won- 
derfully stronger  and  better." 

"Yes,  Mark.  Isn't  it  charming 
to  see  the  change?" 

"Charming?  Oh,  yes— of  course 
82 


Old  New  York 


it's  charming.  But  then,  don't  you 
know,  we  .  .  we  didn't  expect  her 
to  recuperate  like  this." 

"  Recuperate  !  What  a  curious 
word!" 

"  It's  a  perfectly  good  English 
word." 

"I  didn't  say  it  wasn't,"  retorted 
Charlotte,  with  sternness.  "  But, 
for  all  that,  it  has  such  a  large, 
heartless,  lawyer-like  sound.  I  may 
be  unreasonable,  of  course." 

"  It  strikes  me  that  you're  thor- 
oughly unreasonable." 

The  next  fortnight  was  a  crucial 
one  for  Mark.  Pamela,  when  weak 
and  languid,  was  often  a  petulant 
and  exacting  mistress.  But  now, 
when  each  day  seemed  to  lend  her 
fresh  vitality,  she  became  almost 
tyrannically  wilful. 

"  I  like  you  to  give  me  my  medi- 
cine," she  would  say  to  Mark,  "  and 
83 


A  Romance  of 


yet  you  always  manage  to  arrive 
just  after  I  have  taken  it."  Or 
again,  "  I  send  both  Charlotte  and 
father  out  of  the  room,  so  that  we 
can  be  alone  together  (as  two  lovers 
ought  to  be,  at  least  once  a  day), 
and  you  sit  staring  at  me  in  the 
oddest  silence.  You  make  me  do 
all  the  talking." 

"You  talk  so  well,"  said  Mark, 
veiling  his  misery  behind  a  smile. 

"  And  then  there's  another  point : 
you're  not  half  so  much  overjoyed 
at  my  recovery  as  father  and  Char- 
lotte seem  to  be.  Why,  pray,  is 
this?" 

"Oh,  Pamela,"  said  Mark,  with 
an  acute  conscience-pang,  "you 
surely  can't  think  I  am  not  pleased 
to  have  you  get  well !" 

"  Pleased  ?"  And  she  rapped  him 
on  the  ear  somewhat  sharply  with 
the  fan  that  had  lain  in  her  lap.  "  I 
84 


Old  New  York 


should  think,  sir,  you  might  choose 
some  warmer  word/' 

"  I — I  meant  it  to  be  warm,  Pa- 
mela, but  I  have  not  your  expres- 
sive gifts  of  language." 

"  Oh,  you  haven't?"  she  mocked. 
"  It  seems  to  me  that  in  former 
days  I  have  heard  you  employ  a 
good  deal  of  both  fluency  and  elo- 
quence when  the  mood  stirred 
you." 

On  the  following  afternoon  he 
found  her  dressed  in  bonnet  and 
mantilla  and  'waiting  for  him  in  the 
parlor. 

"  I've  been  feeling  so  well  to- 
day," she  announced,  "that  I  asked 
Dr.  Wainwright  if  I  could  not  go 
out.  He  has  consented,  but  re- 
stricts me  to  a  stroll  of  only  three 
times  round  Bowling  Green." 

Charlotte  and  her  father  now  en- 
tered the  room.  Mark  wondered, 
85 


A  Romance  of 


as  he  greeted  them,  "whether  they 
observed  how  pale  he  had  grown. 

"  It  will  be  my  first  appearance 
out  of  doors  since  our  engage- 
ment/' continued  Pamela,  with  a 
few  dainty  touches  at  her  long 
plum-colored  mitts.  "  Of  course, 
as  it  hasn't  been  made  publicly 
known  yet,  I  suppose  I  oughtn't 
to  take  your  arm.  Still,"  she 
added,  -with  a  gay  flirt  of  her 
pretty  frilled  gown,  "  I  believe  I 
will,  after  all.  People  can  say 
what  they  please.  Besides,  very 
few  that  we  care  about  may  see  us ; 
so  many  of  them  have  gone  into 
the  country." 

Mark  caught  Charlotte's  eye. 
She  dropped  her  look  and  turned 
away,  trying  to  smile ;  he  saw  how 
painful  a  failure  she  made  of  the 
effort.  Then  he  glanced  at  Varick 
Verplanck.  The  latter  gave  a  twist 

86 


Old  New  York 


to  his  stock  with  both  hands,  and 
then  coughed  nervously. 

"Wait  supper  for  us/'  called  out 
Pamela,  merrily,  as  she  went  into 
the  hall.  "  I  expect  to  have  quite 
an  appetite  when  I  return/' 

Their  walk,  three  times  round 
Bowling  Green,  was  torture  to 
Mark.  The  heat  had  relented  of 
late ;  it  was  a  perfect  midsummer 
evening.  Flashes  from  the  Bay  came 
to  them  between  the  tossing  trees 
of  the  Battery.  The  sun,  setting  in 
great  splendor,  as  though  far  out  at 
sea,  shot  bars  of  dusty  gold  over 
the  railed  enclosure  of  the  Green, 
gilding  its  clustered  lilac-bushes. 
Overhead  some  gauzy  clouds  had 
grown  a  spectral  pink.  Pamela  had 
taken  Mark's  arm,  and  she  leaned 
upon  it  with  a  jauntily  confidential 
air.  Her  face,  below  its  big  white- 
feathered  bonnet  of  straw,  gleamed 
87 


A  Romance  of 


with  distinct  semblance  of  its  for- 
mer prettiness;  rose-tints  like  re- 
flections from  the  sky  touched  it, 
and  a  new,  clear  sparkle,  as  of 
restored  health,  radiated  from  the 
gaze  which  she  turned,  at  brief 
intervals,  toward  her  companion. 

They  met  few  people,  and  none 
whom  they  chanced  to  know.  Pa- 
mela laughed  and  chatted  with 
spirited  volubility. 

"  Do  you  know,  Mark,  I  feel  able 
to  walk  ten  times  the  distance  pre- 
scribed by  Dr.  Wainwright  ?  Isn't 
it  a  lovely  evening  ?  I  suppose  that 
if  anybody  should  see  us  walking 
arm  in  arm  like  this  the  inference 
would  merely  be  that  you'd  taken 
me  out  for  an  invalid's  airing,  as  an 
old  friend  of  the  family.  .  .  And 
by  the  way,  Mark,  do  you  know 
that  a  very  important  matter  oc- 
curred to  me  this  morning  ?  I  con- 

88 


Old  New  York 


sider  that  you've  been  sadly  remiss 
not  to  have  thought  of  it.  Perhaps 
you  did  think  of  it,  however,  and 
my  illness  prevented  you  from 
carrying  it  into  effect.  Can't  you 
guess  'what  I  mean  ?" 

"  No,  Pamela  .  .  really  .  .  I  can't/' 

"  My  engagement  ring,  you  know, 
Mark.    I  haven't  yet  received  any." 

"True.  .  .  I— I  will  see  to  it  at 
once." 

When  they  paused  at  the  stoop 
of  her  home  Pamela  declared  that 
she  was  not  in  the  least  tired. 
During  supper  she  insisted  on  eat- 
ing one  or  two  things  that  were 
forbidden  to  her,  and  even  spoke 
of  sitting  up  that  evening  a  full  hour 
beyond  her  accustomed  time  of  re- 
tiring. On  this  plan,  however,  Ver- 
planck  laid  an  immediate  veto ;  but 
it  was  nearly  nine  o'clock  when  she 
went  upstairs  at  Charlotte's  side. 
89 


A  Romance  of 


The  torment  in  Mark's  soul  at 
last  found  vent.  He  faced  Ver- 
planck  there  in  the  prim  parlor, 
whose  walls  seemed  to  re-echo  with 
Pamela's  merry  good-night  and 
with  her  firmly  declared  resolve  to 
enjoy  a  similar  walk  on  the  morrow 
— "  only  ever  so  much  longer." 

"  Mr.  Verplanck,"  he  said,  a  little 
hoarsely,  "you  know  that  I  love 
your  daughter  Charlotte." 

"Yes,  Mark,  I  know." 

"  And  that  I  had  asked  you  to 
let  me  marry  her,  and  that  you 
had  promised  me  our  engagement 
should  transpire  as  soon  as  Char- 
lotte completed  her  twenty-first 
year." 

"Yes." 

At  this   point   Mark   despairingly 
lifted  both  hands.     "And  now  Pa- 
mela shows  every  sign   of  getting 
permanently  well !" 
90 


Old  New  York 


"You  are  right,"  murmured  Ver- 
planck.  "  I — I  spoke  with  Wain- 
wright  this  afternoon.  He  has  no 
longer  the  least  doubt.  My  dear 
child  is  getting  well  with  a  most 
remarkable  speed.  It  has  all  been, 
from  the  outset,  a  great  medical 
mistake.  Her  trouble  was  nervous, 
not  organic.*' 

"  Delightful  tidings  for  you,  sir. 
Delightful  they  would  be  for  myself 

as  well,  were  it  not Still,  need  I 

explain  ?" 

"No— naturally." 

"  I  granted  your  earnest  request," 
Mark  went  on,  with  a  dreary  wild- 
ness.  "  Charlotte  abetted  you  in 
this  request.  Her  entreaties,  I 
admit,  were  my  chief  cause  of  con- 
sent. But,  now — what  is  to  be 
done  ?" 

Verplanck  folded  his  arms  and 
began  to  pace  the  floor,  giving  no 
91 


A  Romance  of 


answer  except  one  or  two  perplexed 
shakings  of  his  gray  head. 

"Up  to  the  present  time,"  pro- 
ceeded Mark,  "my  position  was 
defensible ;  I  now  feel  that  it  is 
rapidly  losing  all  excuse.  You  must 
agree  with  me,  Mr.  Verplanck,  that 
the  life-saving  motive  of  my  action 
will  soon  cease  to  exist.1' 

"I  can't  deny  this." 

"And  hence,  sir,  a  single  course 
will  remain.  Pamela,  as  soon  as 
possible,  must  be  told  everything." 

"As  soon  as  possible,"  said  a 
voice  in  the  doorway.  "  But  now 
is  too  early,"  Charlotte  went  on, 
with  her  face  all  anxiety,  her  tones 
all  tremor.  "  Now  it  might  kill  her 
to  be  told!" 

For  a  few  seconds  of  silence 
these  three  people — alarmed,  bewil- 
dered, distressed — stared  into  one 
another's  faces. 

92 


Old  New  York 


Suddenly  Mark  gave  a  cry  of 
bitter  intolerance. 

"I  cannot  go  on  like  this,"  he 
said,  seizing  both  of  Charlotte's 
hands.  "  It  will  drive  me  crazy. 
The  better  she  gets  the  harder  I 
find  it  to  play  lover.  To-day  was  an 
agony.  To-morrow  will  be  worse. 

Next  day Oh,  I  cannot,  I  can- 

notr 


93 


A  Romance  of 


VII. 

CHARLOTTE  forcibly  with- 
drew her  hands.  A  pained 
shine  filled  her  humid 
eyes;  the  corners  of  her  mouth 
were  trembling. 

"  If  you  want  to  kill  my  poor 
sister/1  she  said,  "you  will  shatter 
this  new  happiness.  All  we  now 
ask  is  that  you  shall  wait.  .  .  Is  it 
not  so?'1  And  she  turned  with 
tragic  appeal  to  her  father. 

"Yes,"  replied  Verplanck,  dis- 
mally. "That  is  all  we  ought  to 
ask,  beyond  a  doubt." 

"  If  it  were  only  that  1"  burst  from 
Mark.  "I'd  wait  willingly  enough. 
But  it's  not  merely  waiting,  at  all ; 
it's  acting;  it's  getting  every  nerve 
of  my  body  in  a  tingle ;  it's  lying  as 

94 


Old  New  York 


I've  never  dreamed  I  could  lie. 
Here  is  Pamela  suddenly  waking  to 
the  fact  that  I've  given  her  no  en- 
gagement ring.  I've  got  to  get  her 
one  to-morrow,  I  suppose.  What 
a  horrible  mockery !" 

Charlotte  made  toward  him  a 
quick,  consoling  movement.  "Oh, 
never  mind,  Mark !  It  will  do  for 
me  hereafter!" 

He  gave  a  harsh  laugh.  "  Here- 
after ?  A  year  from  now  ?  Or  two  ? 
Or  three?" 

"  Her  convalescence,"  said  Ver- 
planck,  with  solemnity,  biting  his 
lips,  "is— is  extraordinarily  swift. 
In  a  month  she  may  be  well 
enough  to  hear  all." 

"And  denounce  me  as  a  villain." 

"If  she  did  that  now''  pleaded 
Charlotte,  "  it  might  kill  her." 

"I  don't  believe  so,"  avowed 
Mark.  "  I  don't  believe  my — my 
95 


A  Romance  of 


mendacity  has  helped  her  recovery 
in  the  least.  She  has  always  been 
freakish,  as  you've  both  agreed. 
I  chanced  to  become  one  of  her 
freaks.  She  wasn't  half  as  sick  a 
girl  as  the  doctors  thought,  or  as 
either  of  you  thought,  and  this 
physical  betterment  was  bound,  in 
any  case,  to  come.  She  nearly 
broke  poor  Gerald  Suydam's  heart 
a  year  or  two  ago.  Perhaps  she 
wanted  to  try  and  break  mine. 
But  she  will  never  succeed.'1  He 
looked  full  at  Charlotte.  "It  was 
broken  before.  You've  got  one 
piece,  and  I  retain  the  other." 

"Then  I'll  never  give  it  back  to 
you,  so  that  you  can  mend  the 
fragments  and  live  a  contented 
life,"  mournfully  flashed  Charlotte, 
"  unless  you  stand  firm  for  a  while 
longer  in  this  trying  and  most  un- 
foreseen difficulty." 
96 


Old  New  York 


"  Oh,  as  you  please  !"  cried  Mark, 
while  he  walked  toward  the  door 
with  scowling  face. 

But  here  Verplanck  hurried  to 
Mark,  and  threw  an  arm  detain- 
ingly,  persuasively,  round  his  neck. 
Charlotte's  manner  softened,  a  mo- 
ment later.  Then  Mark,  pierced 
with  pity  and  feeling  new  throbs 
of  love  as  he  watched  her  worried 
face,  felt  also  twinges  of  remorse. 
Perhaps  all  three  were  simulta- 
neously beset  by  a  sense  of  humor 
at  the  novel  and  totally  unantici- 
pated relations  in  which  they  stood. 
If  so,  all  three  realized,  as  well,  the 
profanity  of  open  laughter;  and 
though  many  more  words  were 
spoken  by  each  of  them,  Mark  left 
the  house,  that  evening,  with  his 
burden  of  bondage  weightier  than 
ever,  and  a  full  recognition  of  the 
wretchedly  unsettled  state  in  which 
7  97 


A  Romance  of 


all  plaints  and  importunings  had  left 
his  future. 

Compassion,  as  he  receded  from 
the  house,  faded  once  more  into 
qualms  of  self-injury.  "  What  on 
earth  am  I  going  to  do?"  he  in- 
wardly moaned.  "  How  on  earth 
am  I  going  to  keep  it  up?  The 
strain  has  already  become  unbear- 
able !" 

A  yellow  segment  of  moon  was 
dropping  low  toward  the  west, 
flinging  its  glamorous  light  on  the 
Brooklyn  shore  and  making  the 
dormer-windowed  roofs  of  State 
Street  darkly  visible,  as  Mark  drew 
near  the  house  in  which  he  lived. 
He  had  seen  few  passers,  for  the 
hour  was  a  little  beyond  ten,  and 
this  meant,  in  the  New  York  of  that 
period,  almost  what  midnight  would 
mean  now.  Just  as  he  had  set  his 
foot  on  the  first  step  of  his  own 
98  « 


Old  New  York 


stoop  a  figure  came  forward  from 
the  farther  dimness. 

"  Gerald !" 

"Yes,  Mark;  it's  I.  For  over  an 
hour  I've  waited  in  there  with  your 
father.  But  he  grew  drowsy,  so  I 
left,  and  have  kept  up  a  kind  of 
sentinelship  ever  since." 

"  You  wanted  to  see  me,  then  ?" 

A  closer  view  showed  Mark  how 
pale  and  drawn  was  Gerald's  face. 

"  I  did  see  you,  Mark,  this  evening, 
just  before  twilight.  I  avoided  you 
both;  but  I  watched  you." 

"Well?" 

"  It  was  horrible !  She  leaned 
upon  your  arm ;  she  looked  up  at 
you  and  smiled.  She  bore  the  signs 
of  illness,  but  I  could  note  that  she 
was  no  longer  feeble  or  sickly.  Oh, 
Mark  Frankland,  I,  who  love  that 
girl  as  dearly  as  I  do,  turned  faint 
and  giddy  at  the  devilish  sight!" 

99 


A  Romance  of 


"Devilish,  eh?"  muttered  Mark. 

"Yes — there's  no  other  word  for 
it.  You've  bound  me  by  an  oath 
to  secrecy,  and  it's  an  oath  that  my 
honor  will  not  let  me  break.  But 
when  I  think  of  the  part  you're 
enacting — when  I  think  of  the  awful 
falsehood  that  you,  who  call  your- 
self a  gentleman,  have  been  willing 
to  live  and  persevere  in  for  days 
past,  then  do  I  feel  almost  justified 
in  scorning  the  promise  I  gave  you, 
and  publishing  to  society  at  large 
your  shameless  conduct !" 

Mark's  right  foot  had  till  now 
rested  on  the  lowest  step  of  the 
stoop.  He  drew  it  quickly  back 
upon  the  sidewalk,  and  faced  Ger- 
ald. He  was  very  indignant.  The 
mental  irritation  and  turmoil  of 
hours  past  seemed  to  centre  in  one 
choking  ferment  at  his  heart,  and 
thence  to  send  up  in  his  brain  a  sort 


Old  New  York 


of  fiery  mist.  He  was  taller  than 
Gerald,  and  he  now  loomed  above 
his  former  friend  with  every  feature 
blent  into  one  solid  mask  of  wrath. 
But  he  did  not  speak  loudly;  he 
had  the  air  of  a  man  who  disdains 
explosiveness. 

"You  have  insulted  me  grossly, 
and  you  shall  pay  for  it  hereafter. 
Only  a  friendship  of  so  many  years 
could  keep  me  from  striking  you 
down  like  a  vulgar  ruffian — as  you 
know  very  well  I  have  the  power 
to  do.  But  for  this  jealous  and 
cowardly  misvaluation  of  motives 
honorable  and  disinterested,  be  sure 
that  you  shall  answer  at  some  fu- 
ture time.  I  do  not  care  to  engage 
now  in  a  quarrel  whose  cause  might 
be  guessed,  and  hence  drag  into 
publicity  a  family  I  esteem.  But 
later  I  shall  force  you  into  either 
facing  me  at  the  pistol's  point  or 


A  Romance  of 


amply  retracting  your  insolence  of 
to-night.  Even  to-morrow,  if  you 
please,  however,  you  may  send  me 
your  seconds,  though  it  is  in  order 
that  I,  as  the  aggrieved  party, 
should  send  you  mine." 

"  I  will  meet  you  anywhere  and 
at  any  time,"  replied  Gerald,  firmly. 
"  I  am  not  the  coward  you  have 
called  me.  But  I  loathe  duel- 
ling, and  think  it  murder.  And 
therefore  I  should  fire  in  the  air, 
though  you  might  kill  me  if  you 
chose." 

These  words  were  so  character- 
istic of  Gerald— so  instinct  with 
recollections  to  his  hearer  of  a  na- 
ture which  he  had  long  known  as 
noble  and  brave,  though  deeply 
tinged  with  what  he  himself  had 
often  declared  tiresome  puritanism 
— that  they  wrought  a  speedy  emo- 
tional change. 


Old  New  York 


"Look  here,  Gerald/'  Mark  said, 
with  abrupt,  gruff  feeling,  "you've 
just  called  me,  in  so  many  words, 
a  brute.  I  answer  that  you're  a 
fool.  Shall  it  be  quits  between  us  ? 
Quits,  I  mean,  till  either  you  apolo- 
gize or  I  admit  myself  criminally 
sinful  through  seeking  to  save  a 
fellow-creature's  life." 

Gerald  had  clutched  the  wooden 
railing  of  the  court-yard  near  him. 
'With  bent  head  he  answered, — 

"  I  spoke  rashly,  madly — I  grant 
it.  But  my  love  for  that  poor  girl 
has  almost  crazed  me."  Here  he 
raised  his  head,  and  the  weird  light 
made  his  features  ghostly. 

Mark  sprang  toward  him,  and  put 
both  arms  about  his  form.  There 
were  tears  in  his  eyes.  Of  old  he 
had  fought  many  a  battle  for  Gerald, 
always  weaker  than  he,  always  far 
more  the  student  than  the  athlete. 
103 


A  Romance  of 


A  surge  of  boyish  memories  over- 
swept  him  now,  as  he  gently  shook 
Gerald's  slenderer  frame. 

"You  stupid  fellow!  Do  you 
think  I  wouldn't  go  through  fire-and- 
water  to  give  you  the  girl  you  love 
if  only  I  could?  Do  you  dream  I 
don't  adore  Charlotte  ?  Do  you  fancy 
this  thing  isn't  half  killing  me  with 
vexation  and  botheration  and  in- 
fernal embarrassment?  Do  you 
suppose  I  ever  expected  it  would 
grow  into  such  a  horrible  mess  and 
muddle?  Do  you  suspect  that 
Charlotte  did,  or  that  her  father  did  ? 
Do  you  imagine  we're  not,  all  three 
of  us,  half  out  of  our  wits  with 
consternation  and  excitement?0 

Their  eyes  met,  quite  close. 
"Mark,"  began  the  other,  brokenly, 
"I'm  sorry  I  .  ." 

"There  .  .  there;  that's  enough." 
The  sweat-drops  were  glistening  on 
104 


Old  New  York 


Gerald's  white  face.  Mark  whipped 
out  his  handkerchief  and  mopped 
them  off.  "  Go  home  and  try  to  get 
some  sleep.  I'll  see  you,  or  write 
you,  soon.  God  knows,  if  you  don't 
sleep  a  wink  you  won't,  I'll  wager, 
be  a  whit  worse  off  than  this  poor 
rival  bugaboo  into  which  you've  ab- 
surdly magnified  me !" 


105 


A  Romance  of 


VIII. 

rY  dear  Mark,"  said  Aaron 
Burr,  the  next  morning, 
"it's  all  a  very  interest- 
ing and  extraordinary  case." 

Mark,  in  his  despair,  had  dropped 
into  the  grimy  Reade  Street  rooms, 
and  had  made  a  clean  breast  there 
of  all  his  troubles.  Burr,  who  was 
the  most  brilliant  talker  in  the  town 
that  prided  itself  on  despising  him, 
possessed  also  the  tactful  if  less 
rare  art  of  being  a  perfect  listener. 
He  now  leaned  back  in  his  chair 
before  the  great  flat  desk  so  chaotic- 
ally laden  with  papers  and  books, 
and  musingly  brushed  against  his 
chin  the  feathered  end  of  an  ink- 
stained  quill. 

"  Colonel,"  suddenly  exclaimed 
1 06 


Old  New  York 


Mark,  after  quite  a  long  silence,  "  I 
feel  that  I  am  boring  you.  There 
were  several  people  waiting  to  see 
you  in  the  little  hall  outside  before 
I  came  in,  and  I've  been  here  an 
unconscionable  time  already." 

Burr  gave  one  of  his  gay,  sweet 
laughs.  "  Thank  God,  they're  not 
creditors  this  time,  Mark !  I've 
paid  up  all  pressing  debts  for  at 
least  a  fortnight.  The  fellows  with 
mighty  demands  on  me  can't  be 
among  those  you  saw;  they'd  have 
pushed  in  without  the  least  cere- 
mony if  they  were.  No,  my  boy, 
they're  only  beggars.  They  know 
the  well  isn't  dry  this  morning. 
It's  astonishing  how  the  poor  devils 
manage  to  flairer  the  repletion  of 
that  well!  That's  what  comes  of 
being  a  confirmed  ass  with  one's 
money.  They  know  I  can't  resist 
them  when  they  begin  their  doleful 
107 


A  Romance  of 


tales.  Old  military  comrades;  old 
political  supporters ;  new  (but  starv- 
ing) sympathizers  with  me  in  my 
'  fallen  greatness.1  And  some  of 
them  such  delightful  impostors ! 
I'm  afraid  I  too  often  reward  the 
last  merely  for  amusing  me  by  their 
brazen  impudence. " 

"Well,  colonel,"  said  Mark, 
drawing  a  deep  breath  as  once  again 
his  host's  full,  sweet  laugh  rose  and 
died  away,  "  I'm  a  beggar,  too, 
though  merely  for  a  few  crumbs  of 
wholesome  counsel." 

"  Those  I  want  to  give  you — those 
I  will  give  you  if  I  can,"  returned 
Burr,  at  once  relapsing  into  his 
former  serious  pose.  "  Indeed,  I 
would  make  them  a  whole  loaf, 
were  it  only  in  my  power.  .  .  You 
tell  me  that  a  ship  has  just  reached 
Boston,  bringing  your  firm  valuable 
goods,  about  whose  custom-duties 

108 


Old  New  York 


your  father  thinks  there  may  be 
serious  disagreements." 

"Yes,  colonel." 

"And  that  he  has  just  told  you 
he  deems  it  advisable  for  either  him 
or  yourself  to  make  an  immediate 
journey  to  Boston?" 

"Yes,  colonel." 

Burr  continued  to  muse.  The 
quill  dropped  unheeded  from  his 
fingers.  Again  and  again  he  passed 
a  hand  slowly  across  his  forehead. 
On  a  sudden  he  gave  Mark  one 
quick,  imperative  look. 

"Go  to  Boston." 

"  You  advise  retreat,  then  ?  You, 
a  soldier?" 

"Go  to  Boston,"  Burr  repeated, 
in  much  lower  and  more  lingering 
voice.  He  seemed  to  address  his 
own  thoughts.  He  had  changed  his 
attitude  once  more.  His  clenched 
right  hand,  with  its  elbow  resting  on 
109 


A  Romance  of 


the  front  of  the  desk,  was  now  sup- 
porting his  slanted  head.  Watch- 
ing his  meditative  face,  full  of 
shrewdness  and  power,  Mark 
thought  of  how  this  man  had 
escaped  but  by  one  or  two  votes 
being  President  of  his  country,  and 
of  how  the  brilliancy  and  audacity 
of  his  statesmanship  had  once  made 
him  the  idol  of  that  country  as  well. 

"I  have  it,"  Burr  said,  at  last, 
rising.  "  If  there  is  any  path  out 
of  the  whole  pathetic  yet  absurd 
tangle,  I  seem  to  have  discerned 
one." 

He  now  fixed  upon  Mark  a  look 
that  brimmed  both  with  sympathy 
and  command.  It  amazed  its  re- 
cipient, because  at  once  so  tender 
and  so  austere.  The  next  moment 
he  quickly  approached  the  young 
man,  and  sank  into  a  chair  at  his 
side. 


Old  New  York 


"  I  want  to  do  you  a  service,  my 
boy,  and  I  think  that  I  can.  But 
you  must  throw  yourself  with  a 
certain  amount  of  blind  confidence 
on  my  proffered  assistance.  You 
must  not  ask  leading  questions ;  you 
must  permit  yourself  to  regard  me, 
Aaron  Burr,  as  your  good  genius, 
and  to  envelop  myself  in  a  cloud  of 
benevolent  mysticism.  I've  always 
had  a  romantic  streak  in  me,  and  I 
think  that  provided  any  future  his- 
torian ever  condescends  to  treat  me 
at  all  he  will  be  a  very  dull  person 
if  he  does  not  perceive  that  my 
many  faults  and  few  virtues  are  all 
touched  by  the  element  of  the  pic- 
turesque. Surely "  (with  a  sigh 
sweeping  through  these  next  words) 
" my  misfortunes  have  been!  Yes, 
everything  said,  I  have  succeeded 
picturesquely,  I  have  failed  pictu- 
resquely, I  have  starved  pictu- 


A  Romance  of 


resquely,  and  now  (if  it  be  not  too 
bold  self-flattery)  I  am  travelling 
toward  my  allotted  limit  of  three- 
score years  and  ten  with  a  kind  of 
dogged  self-reliance  that  is  nothing 
if  not  picturesque." 

"True,  colonel.  I've  no  word  of 
dissent." 

Burr's  hand  clasped  lightly  his 
listener's  arm.  "  So  now  I  propose 
to  solve  this  little  social  problem 
after  my  own  picturesque  pleasure. 
You  must  go  to  Boston,  and  you 
must  remain  there— if  it  be  weeks 
and  weeks — till  I  bid  you  return. 
Easy  enough  to  write  Pamela  letters 
of  excuse.  Your  detention  is  un- 
avoidable ;  a  law-suit  is  threatened ; 
it  is  all  a  matter  involving  thousands 
of  dollars.  As  for  your  father,  you 
must  make  him  your  willing  abettor 
— not  a  hard  task,  since  I  well  know 
that  he  adores  you.  There — these 

112 


Old  New  York 


are  my  instructions.  I  will  send 
you  the  formulas,  now  and  then,  of 
your  various  needful  letters  to  Pa- 
mela; you  will  amplify  them  at 
your  own  discretion.  As  regards 
your  real  love-letters  to  -Charlotte, 
those  must  always  be  addressed 
to  me.  I  will  see  that  they  are 
safely  delivered.  Cupid  himself 
could  not  serve  you  as  a  more  effi- 
cient courier,  and  I — a  sadly  mature 
Cupid,  it  is  conceded— will  be  far 
discreeter." 

"Colonel/*    hesitated    Mark,    "I 


"  One  word  more.  This  Mr.  Ger- 
ald Suydam,  who  is  so  love-lorn 
and  heart-stricken  .  .  has  Pamela 
ever  given  him  any  solid  encourage- 
ment ?" 

"  Yes— in  the  past." 

"  The  past !  You  youngsters  talk- 
ing about  a  past !  You  mean  that 

8  113 


A  Romance  of 


she  threw  him  over  a  little  while 
ago." 

"  I  fear  that  describes  it." 

"For  no  cause?" 

"Caprice.  The  same  sort  of  ca- 
price that  made  her " 

"  I  understand.  She  treated  him 
shabbily  then."  Burr  scanned  the 
floor  a  moment,  with  something  like 
a  retrospective  smile  lighting  the 
edges  of  his  clean-cut  lips.  "  I 
know  that  type  of  woman.  .  .  I  long 
ago  marked  the  difference  between 
Pamela  and  Charlotte.  One  is  like 
a  loose-clinging  vine  in  a  strong 
breeze ;  the  other  is  like  a  tall, 
sturdy  rose-tree,  conscious  of  its 
strength,  though  careless  of  its 
beauty.  .  .  Ah  me!  is  there  any 
type  of  woman,  English,  American, 
French,  German,  that  I  have  not 
known  and  tested  in  my  long, 
chequered  life !" 

114 


Old  New  York 


He  started  out  of  his  re  very 
the  next  instant,  and  spoke  once 
more  to  his  companion  with  the 
electric  vivacity  and  directness 
which  he  always  gave  to  any 
theme  that  roused  his  sincere  in- 
terest. 

"  As  I  said,  Mark,  these  are  my  in- 
structions. You  depart  to-morrow 
by  the  early-morning  stagecoach. 
Meanwhile,  your  departure  is  to  be 
kept  wholly  secret.  There  must 
be  no  farewells.  You  are  simply 
forced  to  leave  town.  As  you 
know,  I  am  ami  de  la  maison  at  the 
Verplanck  home.  I  will  drop  in 
there  after  you  have  begun  your 
journey/'  Here  Burr  rose,  push- 
ing back  his  chair.  "Now,"  he 
finished,  "is  it  a  compact?  I  am 
forcing  you  into  no  groove  of  action ; 
I  am  merely  pointing  to  one  which 
you  can  adopt  or  not,  as  you  desire. 
"5 


A  Romance  of 


Yet  if  you  ask  me  for  farther  details 
of  my  own  intended  course,  I  can 
only  answer — 'mystery'." 

"But  why  'mystery',  colonel?" 
asked  Mark,  now  rising  also. 
"  Since  you  have  really  convinced 
yourself  that  you  have  hit  upon 
some  happy  exit  from  this  distress- 
ing maze,  why  are  you  so  deter- 
mined to  shroud  in  reticence  the 
actual  nature  of  your  design  ?" 

Burr  pursed  his  lips  inscrutably, 
and  tapped  Mark's  breast  with  an 
outstretched  forefinger. 

"  Because,  my  boy,"  he  answered, 
"with  serious  face  though  twinkling 
eyes,  "  I'm  about  to  head  a  forlorn 
hope  in  your  behalf.  And  I  can't 
help  preferring  that  you  should 
poke  fun  at  me  after  I  have  failed 
in  it  than  disturb  my  old  nerves  by 
doubts  and  misgivings  before  I've 
set  forth  on  my  desperate  attempt." 

116 


Old  New  York 


"In  any  case,  dear  colonel," 
answered  Mark,  with  impulsive 
heartiness,  "  I  should  never  dream 
of  poking  fun  at  a  man  whose 
abilities  I  so  prize  and  admire!" 


117 


A  Romance  of 


IX. 

WHEN  Pamela  Verplanck  re- 
ceived the  letter  that  told 
her  of  Mark's  departure 
for  Boston,  she  gave  a  dismayed 
scream  and  looked  on  the  verge  of 
swooning. 

"What  is  it?"  cried  Charlotte, 
terrified.  And  then,  with  amaze- 
ment, she,  too,  read  the  truth. 

"To  go  without  bidding  me  a 
single  good-by!"  mourned  Pamela. 
"  And  such  a  fearful  distance  off 
as  Boston !  Why,  he  will  be  two 
weeks  getting  there  I" 

"Horrible!"  shuddered  poor 
Charlotte ;  and  in  an  uncontrollable 
paroxysm  of  suffering,  she  threw 
herself  upon  a  lounge. 

While  she  sobbed,  Pamela 
us 


Old  New  York 


watched  her  with  tearful  eyes, 
through  which  sparks  of  suspicion 
began  gradually  to  prick  like  needle- 
points. 

"  You're  .  .  you're  very  over- 
come," she  managed,  with  strangled 
voice. 

"  Oh,  it's  for  your  sake,  Pamela," 
wildly  fibbed  poor  Charlotte,  drag- 
ging herself  from  the  lounge.  "  I 
do  so  hope  this  news  will  not  put 
you  back.  You  were  getting  along 
so  splendidly."  Then  she  kissed 
Pamela's  forehead,  and  smoothed 
her  hair.  "  Let  me  give  you  your 
medicine,  dear;  it's  .  .  it's  time  you 
took  it." 

"Oh,  I've  had  medicine  enough 
for  one  day!"  And  Pamela  waved 
a  limp  hand  toward  the  letter. 
"Your  lips  are  cold,  sister,  and 
you're  trembling.  You  feel  this 
shock  as  much  as  I  do." 
119 


A  Romance  of 


"On  your  account,  you  know, 
dear." 

"  But  he  used  to  be  so  devoted 
to  you." 

"I've  explained  that.  He— he 
felt  the  usual  shyness  and — and  re- 
luctance of  lovers.  .  .  Do  you  think 
you're  less  agitated,  now?  Take 
this." 

Pamela  took  the  medicine  offered 
her.  She  lay  back  in  her  rocking- 
chair,  and  closed  her  eyes.  She 
looked  paler  than  for  a  good  while 
previously,  and  in  her  face  were 
reminders  of  former  enfeeblement 
and  prostration. 

Charlotte,  all  this  while,  was 
struggling  to  be  calmer.  She  suc- 
ceeded, and  chiefly  for  the  reason 
that  she  felt  certain  Mark  would 
soon  send  her  some  sort  of  ex- 
planation concerning  his  flight. 

"It    zs    a    flight,"    she    told    her 


Old  New  York 


father,  when  he  returned  from  his 
office  at  dinner-time,  one  o'clock. 
"You  remember  what  he  said  to 
us  the  night  before  last.  And 
he  never  came  at  all  yesterday. 
Oh,  father,  it's  all  very  plain! 
He  means  to  stay  in  Boston  till 
Pamela  is  either  out  of  danger  or — 
dead." 

Verplanck  gave  a  great  start. 
"  But  you  say  that  she  is  now 
taking  a  quiet  doze,  and  that  you 
feel  the  shock  will  not  be  at  all 
disastrous." 

"I  feel  so — I  hope  so!"  mur- 
mured Charlotte,  as  she  helped 
her  father  to  soup  from  the  tureen 
of  sprigged  china  looming  before 
her. 

"There's  no  doubt,"  said  Ver- 
planck, nervously  crumbling  his 
bread,  "that  this  Boston  invoice 
may  cost  the  firm  of  Frankland, 

121 


A  Romance  of 


Livingston  &  Vanderwater  a  good 
deal  of  trouble.  They  had  had 
ominous  advices  regarding  it  some 
time  ago,  as  commercial  gossip 
informed  me.  Possibly  Mark's 
vanishment  may  have  been  quite 
unavoidable,  after  all." 

"  I  am  nearly  certain,"  said  Char- 
lotte," that  he  must  have  left  some 
message  for  me."  Her  sweet  eyes 
were  full  of  mingled  hope  and  doubt 
as  she  fixed  them  on  her  father's. 
"And  yet  he  may  have  feared  that 
the  fact  of  such  a  message  would 
be  discovered  by  Pamela."  Here 
she  trembled,  drooping  her  gaze. 
"  Oh,  perhaps  I  shall  never  hear 
directly  from  him  through  all  the 
weeks  of  his  absence !  That  will 
be  torture!" 

Verplanck  sipped  his  soup  as 
though  it  were  nauseous.  "  Char- 
lotte," he  at  length  sighed,  "  I  wish, 


Old  New  York 


now,  that  we  had  never  persuaded 
him  to  attempt  this  deception  !" 

"Father!  Was  not  our  darling's 
life  at  stake?" 

"  It  seemed  so ;  .  .  and  yet  it  may 
only  have  seemed :  who  knows  ? 
There  is  bitter  injustice  in  forcing 
upon  you,  my  child,  so  stern  a 
trial." 

"Never  mind  me,"  said  Char- 
lotte. "  I  shall  try  very  hard  to 
bear  everything,  for  her  sake.  If 
she  suffers  no  relapse  I  shall  find 
my  consolation  there.  In  Mark's 
letter  to  Pamela  he  promises  that 
he  will  soon  write  her  again.  Give 
the  child  three  more  weeks  of  in- 
creasing health,  and  she  will  have 
become  her  old  self.  Then  we  may 
break  the  whole  truth  to  her,  and 
though  our  tidings  inflict  great 
sorrow  it  will  not  be  the  sorrow 
that  kills!" 

123 


A  Romance  of 


"Ah,"  faltered  Verplanck,  in 
doleful  undertone,  "  I  shall  hate 
that  hour  of  revelation  !" 

"  Not  more  than  I  shall  hate  it, 
father,  heaven  knows!" 

Rather  late  that  afternoon  Dr. 
Wainwright  called,  and  found  his 
patient  somewhat  weaker,  though 
not  to  any  alarming  extent.  "  I 
regret,"  he  said  to  Charlotte,  "that 
she  should  still  rebuff  the  idea  of 
going  off  into  the  country.  Now 
is  just  the  time  when  such  a 
change  would  aid  nature  in  working 
thorough  restoration.  I  could  but 
rarely  visit  her,  of  course,  at 
Throgg's  Neck,  yet  you  could  send 
me  frequent  bulletins  of  her  ad- 
vancement or  retrogression." 

"I  will  speak  with  her  again  on 
the   subject,"   said    Charlotte.     "It 
is    quite    probable,    doctor,    that    I 
may  now  induce  her  to  go." 
124 


Old  New  York 


That  evening,  a  little  after  supper, 
Aaron  Burr  dropped  in.  Pamela 
was  upstairs,  preparing  for  bed, 
since  the  doctor  had  still  enjoined, 
above  all  things,  a  continuance  of 
early  hours.  Verplanck  received 
the  guest,  and  for  some  time  they 
spoke  together.  Then  Charlotte 
came  into  the  parlor,  and  there  was 
more  talk,  intermingled,  on  the 
girl's  part,  with  some  very  eager 
and  almost  breathless  listening. 
And  at  last  Charlotte  said,  with 
deep  throbs  in  her  voice, — 

"  Oh,  Colonel  Burr,  so  he  has  told 
you  everything!  And  you  are  to 
receive  the  letters  he  sends  me  !  It 
is  all  so  strange !  I  did  not  dream 
he  would  rush  away  like  this  !  But 
I  see,  now,  that  the  strain  was  be- 
yond his  endurance.  Father  sees 
it,  too — do  you  not,  father?  And 
will  he  write  me  often,  Colonel 
125 


A  Romance  of 


Burr?  Did — did  he  leave  me  any 
parting  message?  If  so,  do  you 
remember  it?  Could  you  repeat  it 
word  for  word?" 

"  No  need  for  that,  my  dear  Miss 
Charlotte,"  said  Burr,  rising  with 
his  most  graceful  bow  and  handing 
her  a  paper. 

Charlotte  seized  the  paper  with  a 
stifled  cry  of  joy,  and  hurried  to  one 
of  the  lighted  candelabra.  She  read 
it  through  again  and  again  (it  was  a 
passionate  love-letter)  with  leaping 
pulses  and  glistening  eyes. 

"I  greatly  regret,'*  Verplanck 
meanwhile  said  to  Burr,  "that 
Mark  Frankland  should  have  rushed 
off  like  this." 

"Really,  my  friend,"  was  Burr's 
reply,  "every  fresh  day  counted 
•with  him." 

"  Then  you  think  it  was  entirely — 
business?" 

126 


Old  New  York 


"Oh,  entirely." 

"  But  he  had  time,  colonel,  to 
visit  you." 

"Ah,  my  dear  Verplanck!  surely 
you  wouldn't  compare  a  half-hour's 
chat  with  me  to  the  wear  and  tear  of 
interviews  with  both  your  daughters ! 
And  such  differing  interviews — each 
so  trying  in  its  special  way  !" 

"  I  see.  .  .  He  has  made  you  his 
confidant,  has  he  not  ?" 

"Yes;  and  a  very  safe  one,  as  I 
hope  you  feel  assured." 

"Remember,  colonel,"  said  Ver- 
planck, with  the  courtesy  of  the 
gentleman  softly  coloring  his  dis- 
tressed mien,  "that  I  have  long 
been  among  your  friendly  sup- 
porters." 

"Who  than  I  should  know  it 
better?"  broke  from  Burr,  his  voice 
charged  with  its  own  rich  and  pe- 
culiar vibrance.  "You  chose  to 
127 


A  Romance  of 


join  the  small  minority,  and  at  a 
time  when  my  foes  and  detractors 
were  legion — as  indeed  they  still  re- 
main !  "With  all  my  poor  wounded 
and  battered  heart,  Verplanck,  I 
thank  you  now,  as  I  have  more  than 
once  thanked  you  in  the  past." 

"Tell  me,"  said  Verplanck,  re- 
turning the  pressure  of  his  guest's 
hand,  "  did  not  Mark  Frankland 
show  fear  lest  our  beloved  Pamela 
might  be  again  imperilled  by  his 
sudden  desertion?" 

With  the  instantaneous  alertness 
of  the  trained  tactician,  Burr  made 
answer, — 

"  He  had  great  trust  in  her  coming 
recovery.  He  regarded  her  as  now 
on  the  sure  road  to  restored  health." 

"Ah,  how  could  he  know? — how 
could  he  know?"  Verplanck  threw 
out,  in  dubious  dolor. 

"  Nobody  can  know.  But  he  sur- 
128 


Old  New  York 


mised,  he  inferred."  After  a  little 
pause,  Burr  quickly  added,  "The 
future,  inexorably,  is  a  blank;  we 
can  only  paint  there  what  gay  or 
sad  shapes  we  choose.  Paint  gay 
ones,  my  dear  friend.  It's  always 
so  much  wiser.  I'm  painting  them 
now." 

"You,  Burr?" 

"Yes.  I  see  the  whole  horrid 
complexity,  but  I  feel  certain  there's 
a  way  out  of  it." 

"What  way?"  sped  the  eager 
query. 

"  Bless  me,  man  !  As  if  I  knew ! 
As  if  I  didn't  merely  hope  !" 

But  Aaron  Burr  knew,  all  the 
while — or,  with  his  characteristic 
sublime  self-reliance,  persuaded 
himself  that  he  knew.  Only,  if 
Verplanck  had  offered  to  pay,  there 
on  the  spot,  every  penny  of  his 
goading  and  omnivorous  debts,  very 
9  129 


A  Romance  of 


probably  he  would  not  have  dis- 
closed (so  strange  was  the  wayward 
and  baffling  nature  of  this  unique 
man)  the  why  and  wherefore  of  his 
covert  conviction. 


130 


Old  New  York 


x. 

IN  a  few  more  days  Pamela  made 
no  objection  to  leaving  town. 
It  was  no  longer  a  question  of 
her  going  into  the  country  for  sani- 
tary benefits,  however.  She  could 
now  not  only  take  her  walks  abroad, 
but  take  them  with  her  old  springy 
step,  and  alone,  had  she  so  desired. 
One  afternoon  she  did  so  desire, 
waving  away  Charlotte's  offer  to  ac- 
company her  with  quite  a  superb  air. 

"  No,  if  you  please.  I  want  to 
write  Mark  to-morrow  that  I  went 
out  all  by  myself.  How  does  my 
frock  look  behind  ?  I  don't  wish  it 
to  be  too  long ;  it  feels  as  if  it  almost 
touched  the  ground/' 

"  Not  at  all,  Pamela.  And  your 
bronze  slippers  show  underneath  it 
131 


A  Romance  of 


very  prettily.  But  are  you  sure 
they're  not  too  thin  ?" 

"  No ;  the  weather's  very  dry. 
Now  don't  dream  of  following  me, 
Charlotte." 

"  I  promise  you  I  will  not." 

But  Charlotte  watched  her  from 
one  of  the  upper  windows  till  she 
was  hidden  by  the  curving  street. 
Pamela  bore  herself  with  secure  se- 
renity. She  did  not  wish  that  any 
acquaintance  whom  she  might  meet 
should  detect  in  her  gait  or  de- 
meanor the  least  sign  of  the  inva- 
lid. It  was  a  sluggish,  gray  after- 
noon, but  she  moved  along  with 
a  positive  buoyancy.  Health  was 
coming  back  to  her,  and  in  every 
fibre  and  vein  she  rejoiced  at  its 
gracious  advent. 

The  hour  was  about  five  o'clock, 
and  several  people  who  had  still 
remained  in  town,  and  who  be- 
132 


Old  New  York 


longed  to  her  small  social  world, 
came  face  to  face  with  her.  Three 
or  four  of  these  stopped  her  with 
ardent  congratulations.  One  of 
them  was  an  old  lady  with  silky 
white  hair,  old  enough  to  be  her 
grandmother,  and  indeed  a  friend 
of  that  deceased  ancestress  on  the 
paternal  side. 

"  My  dear  child !  I'm  so  glad  to 
see  you  out/'  said  the  lady,  kissing 
her. 

"Thank  you,  Mrs.  Van  Rensse- 
laer.  It's  very  nice  to  be  out,  I  can 
assure  you." 

"  And  all  alone  !  Isn't  it  a  little 
imprudent  ?  My  home  is  just  here 
in  Beaver  Street.  Won't  you  come 
in  and  let  me  give  you  a  glass  of 
blackberry  wine  ?  You  look  a  .  .  a 
little  tired." 

But  Pamela  politely  declined  the 
blackberry  wine,  and  sauntered  on- 
133 


A  Romance  of 


ward.  Her  social  world,  as  before 
has  been  said,  was  a  small  one.  No 
marvel,  then,  that  just  as  she  came 
within  sight  of  the  big,  breezeless 
trees  of  the  Battery,  Gerald  Suy- 
dam  should  dawn  upon  her  sight. 

Pamela  put  out  her  hand  in  the 
prettiest  way.  She  had  once  merci- 
lessly snubbed  Gerald,  and  knew 
that  he  had  been  in  love  with  her 
to  the  verge  of  distraction  when  she 
did  so.  But  now  her  humor  was 
roseate  and  benign.  Mark's  de- 
parture had  jarred  on  her  most 
harshly,  but  it  had  not,  after  all, 
repressed  the  current  of  her  reas- 
sertive  health. 

"  I  haven't  seen  you  for  a  long 
time,  Gerald,"  she  said,  amused  by 
his  evident  confusion.  "  I  hope  you 
have  been  quite  well  ?" 

"Yes  —  yes  —  quite,"  floundered 
poor  Gerald.  "And  I'm  so  glad 
134 


Old  New  York 


you're  well  enough  to  go  out  alone 
like  this." 

"  Thank  you/1  she  said,  while  his 
eyes  devoured  her  face.  A  roguish 
impulse  made  her  add,  "  I'm  the 
least  bit  tired.  Would  you  mind 
holding  my  parasol  and  strolling 
with  me  to  a  bench  here  in  the 
Green  ?  I  think  I  should  like  to  rest 
for  about  five  minutes. " 

Would  Gerald  mind  ?  He  grabbed 
the  parasol  so  tremulously  that  he 
almost  dropped  it.  And  literally  he 
did  not  know  what  he  was  saying 
as  he  blurted  forth, — 

"  It  seemed  to  me  that  Mark 
Frankland's  rushing  off  in  such 
sudden  style  would  make  you  worse 
again!  I'm — I'm  so  glad,  Pamela, 
that  it  hasn't." 

In  an  instant  the  girl's  eyes  began 
to  glitter  strangely.  But  she  kept 
her  gaze  away  from  Gerald  as  they 
135 


A  Romance  of 


walked  on  together.  She  knew 
very  well  that  meeting  her  again  in 
this  abrupt  style,  and  having  her 
treat  him  so  blandly,  had  gone  to 
his  head  like  some  dizzying  elixir. 

"  Has  Mark  Frankland  told  you, 
then?"  she  asked. 

"  Oh,  yes  !  And  I've  suffered  so 
on  your  account  ?  But  perhaps  be- 
fore he  went  he — he  disclosed  the 
whole  secret.  I  think  he  must  have 
done  so.  He  wouldn't  have  dared 
leave  on  such  a  long  journey  as 
from  here  to  Boston  without  letting 
you  know  how  he'd  been  deceiving 
you/1 

By  this  time  they  were  entering 
the  little  park.  Pamela  sank  on 
one  of  the  empty  benches.  As 
Gerald  took  his  place  at  her  side 
he  gave  a  short,  faint  cry. 

"  You  look  paler.  Are  you  feeling 
ill  again?" 

136 


Old  New  York 


"No,"  replied  Pamela,  trying  to 
smile.  "What  you  said,  however," 
she  went  on,  measuring  each  word 
as  though  between  lips  that  had 
somehow  oddly  stiffened — "what 
you  said,  a  minute  ago,  Gerald,  in- 
terested me.  Please  continue,  will 
you  not  ?  I  want  to  hear  more." 

"What  I  said?"  fell  feebly  from 
Gerald. 

He  had,  in  reality,  only  the 
vaguest  recollection  of  what  words 
had  just  left  him.  He  had  been 
almost  like  a  man  talking  in  his 
sleep.  He  was  not  guilty  of  break- 
ing his  oath  to  Mark.  The  intensity 
of  his  agitation  had  betrayed  him 
into  breaking  it — this,  and  this  alone. 

He  stared  helplessly  at  Pamela 
as  she  repeated,  in  quiet  tones, 
every  word  of  his  recent  pell-mell, 
automatic  sentences. 

Then,  as  she  finished,  his  body 
137 


A  Romance  of 


drooped  weakly  forward,  and  he 
began,  in  hurried  fashion,  to  trace 
scrolls  and  flourishes  with  the  tip 
of  her  parasol  on  the  gravelled  path 
at  his  feet. 

"  Give  me  that  parasol,"  at  length 
commanded  Pamela,  quite  placidly, 
"  and  please  at  once  explain  to  me 
what  you  have  lately  said." 


138 


Old  New  York 


XL 

AS  he  handed  her  the  parasol, 
Gerald     looked     with     de- 
spairing eyes  into  the  face 
of  the  girl  he  worshipped. 

"I — I've  disgraced  myself,"  he 
groaned.  "  I — I  didn't  know  what 
I  was  saying!  Pamela,  you  can't 
have  forgotten  how  dearly  I  love 
you !  And  seeing  you  on  a  sudden, 
like  this " 

"  I  understand,"  she  put  in,  with 
icy  repose.  "You  spoke  of  my 
being  deceived  by  Mark  Frankland, 
What  did  you  mean  by  that?" 

"Oh,  you  mustn't  ask  me!  I— I 
don't  even  recollect  that  I  said  it." 

"  But    you     must    tell    me — you 
must  tell  me  everything,"  insisted 
Pamela,  grasping  his  arm. 
139 


A  Romance  of 


And  before  they  left  the  little  park 
he  had  told  her.  He  felt  unspeak- 
ably guilty,  and  yet  his  sense  of 
error  was  far  less  potent  because 
of  their  after-talk  than  because  of 
his  first  divulgence.  As  she  rose 
and  reapproached  the  gate,  he  said, 
following  her, — 

"  Since  I  had  begun,  I  was  forced 
to  finish.  Mark  Frankland  will  look 
on  me  as  a  perjurer,  I  suppose,  and 
despise  me  as  one.  But  the  dis- 
closure I  made  was  involuntary.'1 

"Yes,  no  doubt,"  Pamela  said, 
vaguely. 

"Ah,"  he  brought  out,  with  for- 
lorn accents,  "perhaps  you  despise 
me  now!" 

She  shook  her  head  in  negation. 
"Not  at  all,  Gerald.  I  should 
rather  despise  my  own  stupid 
credulity."  She  stopped,  just  out- 
side the  gate.  "Thank  you,"  she 
140 


Old  New  York 


added,  and  gave  him  her  hand  for 
a  moment. 

"  Are  you  going  back  home  now?" 
he  asked. 

"Yes." 

"May  I  not  go  with  you?"  he 
pleaded. 

"  You're  very  kind,  but  I  .  .  well, 
I  want  to  be  alone  for  a  little  while." 

"Can  I  come  and  see  you?"  he 
persisted.  "  Will  you  not  let  me 
come  and  see  you  some  evening?" 

"  I — I  retire  quite  early,  Gerald. 
My  doctor  is  still  a  good  deal  of  a 
despot,  you  know." 

"  But  in  the  afternoon,  Pamela?" 

"We  are  going  into  the  country 
quite  soon.  .  .  We  are  going  to 
Throgg's  Neck." 

"  Dear  old  Throgg's  Neck  !   What 

joyful  times  we  used  to  have  there  ! 

It  was  there,  Pamela,  that  you  first 

filled   me  with  happy  hope.     And 

141 


A  Romance  of 


only  such  a  short  while  ago !  I 
can't  tell  you  how  often  I've  lived 
over  in  my  dreams  that  one  last 
delicious  fortnight." 

"  Great  changes  come  in  short 
intervals,  Gerald.  Good-by."  And 
Pamela,  knowing  that  she  was 
cruel,  yet  not  wishing  to  be,  struck 
northward  at  a  quick  pace.  After 
she  had  gone  a  block  or  two,  her 
progress  slackened.  She  felt  a 
little  faint,  and  wondered  if  her 
old  illness  would  now  crushingly 
revisit  her.  "  Why  not  ?"  she  asked 
herself.  "  I  have  discovered  that 
in  their  pity  for  me,  in  their  wish 
to  save  me  from  death,  they  have 
made  of  me  a  most  miserable  dupe 
and  fool!" 

Walking  slower,  she  soon  caught 
sight  of  her  own  home.  And  then, 
with  the  passing  of  physical  weak- 
ness, came  upon  her  a  shamed  and 
142 


Old  New  York 


haughty  reluctance  to  let  either 
Charlotte  or  her  father  learn  of  her 
disillusion.  In  reality,  even  the 
severe  shock  just  dealt  her  had  no 
power  to  throw  her  back  upon  a  bed 
of  sickness.  She  had  been  growing 
too  steadily  and  radically  better 
for  any  such  result.  This  news 
might  retard  her  full  recovery,  and 
plunge  her  into  mental  wretched- 
ness, but  fate  had  permanently 
snatched  her  from  that  dire  col- 
lapse, and  with  revivified  stamina 
she  would  go  on  living,  despite 
the  knowledge  that  she  had  been 
cozened  and  hoodwinked  after  this 
humiliating  fashion. 

These  thoughts  were  flooding  her 
mind  as  she  now  turned  westward 
and  entered  Rector  Street,  moving 
parallel  with  the  green  lawns  and 
gleaming  grave-slabs  that  sur- 
rounded Trinity  Church,  then 
143 


A  Romance  of 


deemed  a  most  grand  structure 
since  its  re-erection  in  1790  from  the 
ashes  to  which  it  had  been  reduced 
in  1776. 

It  was  pardonable  in  so  young  a 
creature  as  Pamela  that  she  felt  far 
more  forcibly,  just  now,  the  sting  of 
wounded  pride  than  the  heartache 
of  bereavement.  She  was  barely 
nineteen  years  old,  and  since  child- 
hood, as  we  know,  had  been  the 
prey  of  many  random  and  transitory 
whims.  As  the  whole  situation 
cleared  to  her  she  had  not  one  re- 
sidual qualm  of  resentment  against 
either  her  father  or  sister.  But  in- 
dignation was  sombrely  gathering 
its  energies,  each  fresh  minute, 
with  Mark  Frankland  for  a  cause. 
If  they  had  wanted  him  to  play  the 
benignant  hypocrite,  that  was  no 
excuse  for  his  having  accepted  such 
a  role.  She  found  herself  tingling 
144 


Old  New  York 


with  shame  and  rage  (both  of  which 
perhaps  acted  tonically  rather  than 
debilitatingly)  as  she  slipped  farther 
away  from  the  broad  brick  front  of 
her  own  dwelling. 

"To  think/*  were  her  passionate 
reflections,  "that  when  father  told 
him  my  secret  he  shouldn't  have 
remembered  he  was  born  a  gentle- 
man, and  at  once  have  refused  to 
deport  himself  otherwise !  And 
then  the  gross  falsehoods  he  uttered 
with  such  glibness  !  I  might  forgive 
him  even  those,  but  I  can't  forgive 
him  the  answers  they  drew  from 
me.  Those  will  go  on  mortifying 
me  for  the  rest  of  my  life — I'm  sure 
they  will!" 

She  stopped,  now,  in  the  bitter- 
ness of  her  bleeding  girlish  pride, 
and  looked  through  the  iron  railings 
of  Trinity  churchyard  at  the  placid 
graves  of  the  dead.  Perhaps  the 

10  145 


A  Romance  of 


sensations  that  these  awoke  blent 
with  memories  of  how  near  to 
death  she  had  believed  herself  only 
a  few  weeks  ago.  Anyway,  her 
savage  arraignment  of  Mark  became 
in  a  manner  tranquillized,  and  she 
was  just  concluding  that  she  felt 
calm  enough  to  return  and  meet 
Charlotte,  when  a  brisk  voice 
sounded  at  her  side  : 

"Miss  Pamela!  Can  I  believe  it 
is  really  you  ?  And  quite  unaccom- 
panied ?" 

"Quite,  colonel,"  she  answered, 
shaking  hands  with  Aaron  Burr. 

"All  the  more  encouraging !"  he 
exclaimed.  "  But  I  must  not  tell 
your  people  that  I  found  you  so 
dolefully  employed."  He  pointed 
with  a  rebuking  smile  at  the  grave- 
yard, but  something  in  Pamela's 
look  made  the  smile  quickly  fade. 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  sudden 
146 


Old  New  York 


childlike  wistfulness  that  soon 
changed  to  a  more  self-reliant  gaze. 
As  a  little  girl  she  had  been  taught 
to  regard  him  leniently  by  the  open 
leniency  of  her  father.  Then  had 
come  one  of  her  causeless  antipa- 
thies. And  later,  as  we  have  seen, 
she  had  got  to  admire  him  alto- 
gether on  her  own  account.  She 
had  fought  battles  for  him  with  girl 
friends,  had  denied  gloomy  rumors 
concerning  him,  had  praised  his  wit 
and  grace  and  fine  breeding.  At 
the  same  time  she  knew  he  was 
a  pariah,  though  she  always  had 
maintained  that  he  was  a  social 
martyr  as  well.  He  had  fascinated 
her  as  a  personality,  a  presence, 
more  than  she  knew.  And  now  a 
strange  yet  natural  impulse  seized 
her — natural,  at  least,  in  a  maid  so 
volatile,  alterant,  and  impetuous  of 
temperament. 

147 


A  Romance  of 


She  would  disclose  to  no  one 
the  tidings  conveyed  by  Gerald! 
She  would  not  breathe  to  any 
living  soul  a  word  of  her  new  and 
mortifying  discovery.  She  would 
pretend,  when  Mark  Frankland 
returned  from  Boston,  that  she 
had  not  only  outlived  her  ardent 
attachment,  but  had  replaced  it 
with  another,  more  absorbing  and 
intense.  If  her  health  did  not 
break  down  again,  if  her  vitality 
increased  and  throve,  she  would 
use  every  effort  to  dazzle  and  cap- 
ture this  elderly  widower  beau. 
He  might  respond  merely  in  a  self- 
flattered  way;  she  already  caught 
herself  hoping  that  he  would  never 
dream  of  taking  her  blandishments 
too  seriously.  But  she  meant  to 
exert  them.  It  should  be  a  ven- 
geance of  deceit  for  deceit.  In  his 
own  coin  she  would  pay  Mark 
148 


Old  New  York 


back.  She  saw  herself  practising 
before  her  mirror  the  glacial  glance 
that  she  would  give  him  when  they 
next  should  meet.  And  if  her  pre- 
tended heart-change  did  not  plunge 
a  dagger  of  chagrin  deep  into  his 
masculine  vanity,  then  she  knew 
of  no  weapon  that  could  deal  it 
a  more  effective  wound.  All  this 
trend  of  resolve  in  her  was  hardly 
measurable  by  time.  "  My  good 
Colonel  Burr,"  she  soon  answered, 
"  is  it  queer  that  you  find  me  star- 
ing into  a  graveyard  when  I  was 
expecting,  only  so  short  a  while 
since,  to  take  up  permanent  lodg- 
ings there  ?" 

"Don't  speak  like  that,  Miss  Pa- 
mela !  You  pain  me  to  the  soul !" 

"Ah,"  she  said,  very  smoothly 
and  wooingly,  "  I  should  hate  for  a 
moment  to  cloud  your  sunshine  !" 

"And  why — pray,  why?"  asked 
149 


A  Romance  of 


Burr,  drawing  nearer  to  her. 
Somehow,  in  a  second,  the  girl 
perceived  that  he  was  handsomer 
than  she  had  ever  suspected.  The 
afternoon  was  dim,  but  its  light  still 
stayed  searching.  She  had  always 
before  seen  him  in  rooms  either 
where  candles  glimmered  or  cur- 
tains obstructed  glare.  Now  it 
amazed  her  that  maturity  had  left 
his  tintings  so  fresh,  and  given  not 
a  single  tired  trace  to  the  clear, 
white  lids  of  his  beautiful  magnetic 
eyes. 

"  Why  ?"  Pamela  repeated.  "  Oh, 
because  your  cheerfulness  has  al- 
ways affected  me  with  such  a  holi- 
day sort  of  feeling!  I  should  hate 
to  miss  it  when  I  met  you."  Here 
she  smiled,  and  for  an  instant  all 
hint  of  her  convalescence  fleeted; 
she  had  the  air  of  a  wilted  plant 
that  responds,  leaf  and  stem,  to 
150 


Old  New  York 


some  stimulant  dewfall.  "And  I 
hope  to  meet  it  oftener  in  the  near 
future.  We  are  soon  going  to 
Throgg's  Neck,  and  this  summer 
you  should  not  ignore  the  invitation 
father  has  often  given  you  to  come 
and  make  us  a  long  visit." 

Burr  looked  at  her  steadily  for  a 
moment.  "My  dear  young  lady," 
he  said,  "ever  since  I  returned  to 
my  native  land  from  those  four 
years  of  exile,  leisure  has  been  for 
me  a  lost  joy  and  struggle  a  con- 
tinuous requisite.  But  now  that 
you  double  the  delights  of  your 
father's  hospitality  by  promising  me 
your  own  welcome  as  well,  I  am 
tempted  to  wish  he  would  repeat 
his  invitation,  which  I  should  surely 
accept  in  the  teeth  of  every  obstacle 
save  illness  or  death. " 

He  gave  what  to-day  would  in- 
deed be  called  an  old-fashioned 
151 


A  Romance  of 


bow,  bending  low  his  body,  lifting 
his  hat  with  high-crooked  elbow, 
and  placing  one  hand  just  above 
his  heart. 

At  the  same  time  he  was  reflect- 
ing, "  Bless  us,  could  luck  be  more 
apposite  ?  The  first  steps  of  my 
plan  to  pull  poor  Mark  Frankland 
out  of  the  mire  have  been  smoothed 
for  me  as  if  by  destiny  itself!" 


152 


Old  New  York 


XII.     '*'••' 

TOWARD  the  end  of  that 
same  week  the  Verplancks 
left  town  for  their  country 
home.  It  was  a  great  wooden 
house,  that  might  have  been  far 
more  angularly  ugly  while  yet  es- 
caping such  charge ;  for  the  lovely 
elms  and  chestnuts  and  oaks  that 
shadowed  its  lawn,  and  the  rocky 
shore,  indented  by  coves  of  pearly 
sand,  that  you  reached  by  only  a 
short  walk  from  its  front  verandah, 
were  charms  that  made  its  archi- 
tectural uncouthness  an  easy  thing 
to  forget. 

Pamela  had  had  a  distinct  relapse, 

after  coming  home  from  her  walk 

that    evening,    and    Charlotte    kept 

accusing     herself,     in     affectionate 

153 


A  Romance  of 


terror,  of  foolish  indulgence.  But 
the  conviction  of  having  been  falsely 
alarmed  soon  cheered  her. 

"  I  fatigued  myself  a  little ;  that 
was  all,"  declared  Pamela.  "See 
if  I  don't  bear  our  drive  into  the 
country  as  well  as  you  do." 

She  bore  it  almost  as  well,  if  not 
quite.  And  when  she  got  to  Shady 
Shore  (which  was  the  name  of  their 
summer  abode)  she  delighted  her 
father  by  merrily  informing  him 
that  he  would  soon  be  wishing 
Charlotte  could  only  equal  her 
plumpness  and  color. 

"There's  now  not  a  grain  of 
doubt,"  said  Verplanck  to  Charlotte, 
"that  she  has  taken  a  new  lease  of 
life." 

"Yes,  father,"  was  the  answer; 
"  and  yet  her  gayety  has  not  always 
the  right  ring." 

"  How  is  that,  my  daughter?" 
154 


Old  New  York 


"  I  suspect  that  she  is  very 
angry  at  Mark,  yet  for  some  reason 
speaks  of  him  as  though  she  were 
not." 

"  H  . .  m— yes,"  mused  Verplanck. 
"  Now  that  she  is  getting  so  well 
we  must  think  about  undeceiving 
her." 

"Undeceiving  her!"  shuddered 
Charlotte.  "  Oh,  father,  I  do  so 
dread  that !  And  yet  it  must  come, 
must  it  not?" 

"  It  certainly  must,  my  child." 

* '  Father  ! ' '  Charlotte  suddenly 
said,  as  though  a  fresh  and  pungent 
idea  had  occurred  to  her. 

"Well,  my  dear?" 

"  Colonel  Burr  is  coming,  the  day 
after  to-morrow,  to  pay  us  a  long 
visit.  Why  should  we  not  induce 
him  to  break  the  news  ?  Pamela  is 
very  fond  of  him,  you  know.  We 
might  ask  him  to  use  with  her  all 


A  Romance  of 


his  wondrous  diplomacy  and  adroit- 
ness. " 

They  did  so,  a  short  time  after 
Burr's  arrival.  But  the  colonel 
managed  to  leave  upon  them  no 
more  definite  impression,  in  the 
way  of  answer,  than  an  inscrutably 
amiable  smile.  He  had  his  own 
line  of  action  to  follow,  not  theirs. 
A  kind  of  social  luminosity  at  once 
diffused  itself  from  him,  in  whose 
rays  his  entertainers  basked  without 
thinking  how  or  why.  This  man, 
who  had  survived  the  ruin  of  kingly 
hopes,  who  had  but  lately  been 
pierced  by  the  anguish  of  an  adored 
daughter's  death  and  that  of  a  treas- 
ured grandson  as  well,  who  had 
seen  popularity  and  honor  turn 
avoidance  and  odium,  could  never- 
theless deport  himself  with  an 
almost  boyish  blitheness,  here  in 
the  company  of  unprejudiced 
156 


Old  New  York 


friends.  Even  the  servants  of  Ver- 
planck,  most  of  whom  were  blacks, 
became  his  fervent  admirers.  He 
was  up  earlier  in  the  morning,  by  at 
least  two  hours,  than  any  of  the 
family,  and  took  long  rides  on  horse- 
back, sometimes  choosing  an  ani- 
mal of  doubtful  temper,  that  his  past 
military  experience  and  splendid 
equestrian  skill  made  him  easily 
subdue.  In  his  radiant  flow  of 
spirits  there  was  no  abatement,  and 
yet  even  the  most  frolicsome  traits 
of  his  humor  and  geniality  were  im- 
bued with  a  dignity  vague  though 
beyond  dispute. 

He  told  them  (with  inimitable 
eloquence,  pathos,  and  fun)  of  his 
triumphs  and  failures,  his  successes 
and  defeats,  during  four  years  of 
foreign  life.  It  was  not  a  common 
thing  to  meet  any  one  then  who  had 
crossed  the  Atlantic,  for  our  crawl- 
157 


A  Romance  of 


ingly  slow  mail-packets  had  still  left 
us  a  nation  of  stay-at-homes.  He 
brimmed  'with  amusing  tales  of  pri- 
vations and  annoyances  during  that 
thirty-five  days'  trip.  He  described, 
with  poignant  satire  and  unfailing 
mirth,  the  social  London  of  1808, 
where  he  had  met  on  terms  of 
intimacy  the  most  important  fre- 
quenters of  Holland  House,  where 
he  had  hobnobbed  with  Lord 
Bridgewater  and  Godwin  and  the 
painter  Fuseli  and  the  young 
Charles  Lamb,  and  where  he  had 
formed  an  undying  friendship  with 
the  wide-famed  Jeremy  Bentham. 
"And  all  this  while/1  he  would 
sometimes  gaily  add,  "  I  was  liv- 
ing on  potatoes  in  lodgings  whose 
shabby  locality  I  dared  not  name, 
lest  the  Belgravian  gentry  who 
heard  of  them  might  hold  up  hor- 
rified hands.0 

158 


Old  New  York 


He  recounted  the  most  diverting 
tales  of  his  struggles  to  escape  from 
Paris,  while  a  rigid  surveillance 
guarded  him  there  on  every  side, 
and  the  great,  unapproachable  Na- 
poleon, now  wedded  to  a  Hapsburg 
princess  and  anxiously  awaiting  the 
birth  of  the  King  of  Rome,  refused 
him  the  audience  he  so  eagerly 
craved.  "  Dukes  and  counts  were, 
alas,"  he  would  say,  "my  constant 
enforced  associates !  They  were 
forever  measuring  out  yards  and 
yards  of  red  tape  in  which  they  both 
decorated  and  entangled  me.  I  only 
wish  some  of  it  had  been  salable  in 
those  ticklish  times;  for  there  was 
an  old  woman,  as  I  well  remember, 
who  kept  a  little  stand  in  the  Rue 
de  Seine,  and  I  had  to  make  a  d&tour 
in  passing  her  for  a  whole  week, 
because  I  owed  the  poor  old  soul 
two  sous  for  a  cigar." 
159 


A  Romance  of 


Pamela's  health  was  at  length 
so  reinvigorated  that  she  insisted 
on  accompanying  Burr  in  an  oc- 
casional horseback  ride.  "  I'll 
promise  to  bring  her  home  to  you 
as  fresh  as  when  she  started,"  he 
would  say  to  either  Charlotte  or 
Verplanck.  But  by  and  by  he 
would  bring  her  home  with  a  flush 
on  her  cheeks  and  a  fire  in  her  eyes 
that  drew  from  her  sister  a  faint 
though  puzzled  frown. 

When  Verplanck  took  a  town- 
ward  trip  in  the  stagecoach,  his 
guest  did  not  always  go  with  him. 
And  when  he  did  not,  Charlotte 
found  Shady  Shore  somewhat 
lonely,  for  the  colonel  and  Pamela 
would  spend  longer  and  longer  in- 
tervals in  strolls  and  t£te-ci-t£tes. 
Once  Charlotte  said,  with  a  kind  of 
chiding  tone,  to  her  sister, — 

"Mark's     letters     from     Boston 

160 


Old  New  York 


come  frequently,  I  see.  But  you 
seem  to  dash  off  very  brief  answers, 
of  late." 

"  Yes,"  replied  Pamela,  with  chin 
at  an  airy  angle  and  eyelids  flutter- 
ing. "  Life  is  so  quiet  here,  you 
know,  that  I've  scarcely  anything 
to  write  him.  Besides,  he  sends 
me  so  little  news  about  his  own 
doings.  It  seems  very  strange,  cer- 
tainly, that  mere  business  should  de- 
tain him  east  so  long.  There  are 
quite  as  many  pretty  faces  to  be  met 
on  Boston  Common,  I'll  venture,  as 
on  our  own  Battery." 

"Oh,  Pamela!"  shot  out  Char- 
lotte, unguardedly  reproachful. 

"  How  can  you  believe  him  so ?" 

She  stopped  dead  short,  crimsoning 
to  her  temples.  She  had  next  her 
bosom,  that  very  minute,  an  elo- 
quent love-letter  which  Burr  had 
yesterday  received  in  his  own  mail 

II  161 


>*.  :   i 

A  Romance  of 

from  town,  and  had  slipped  into  her 
hand  when  certain  no  prying  glance 
was  near. 

The  days  went  on,  and  Burr  did 
not  speak  of  departing.  It  was  al- 
most autumn,  and  some  of  the  open 
fields  were  seas  of  fluctuant  golden- 
rod,  while  sapphire  knots  of  asters 
and  thickets  of  glossy-beaded  elders 
vied  in  color  with  the  yellowing 
or  reddening  apples  glimpsed  amid 
rusted  orchard  leafage.  A  few 
neighboring  Westchester  residents, 
friends  of  the  Verplancks,  had  in- 
terchanged visits  with  them  since 
the  coming  of  Aaron  Burr.  Others 
had  expressed  decided  disapproval 
of  his  presence  at  Shady  Shore, 
and  refused  to  darken  its  doorways 
while  he  abode  there. 

Every  summer  three  or  four 
grand  private  balls  would  be  given ; 
and  now,  almost  at  the  beginning 
162 


Old  New  York 


of  September,  and  still  during  the 
sojourn  of  Burr,  it  happened  that 
the  Van  Wagenens,  who  owned  a 
large  and  beautiful  inland  estate, 
five  or  six  miles  farther  northward 
than  that  of  the  Verplancks,  chose 
to  entertain  in  their  usual  lavish 
way.  Their  ball  was  to  be  one  of 
special  note,  and  there  was  even  a 
rumor  that  President  Monroe  might 
come  on  from  the  White  Sulphur 
Springs  to  attend  it.  The  Ver- 
plancks had  received  invitations, 
but  none  had  been  sent  to  Colonel 
Burr,  notwithstanding  his  known 
presence  at  Shady  Shore.  There 
were  imperative  reasons  why  Var- 
ick  Verplanck  should,  with  at  least 
one  of  his  daughters,  attend  the 
ball.  He  had  hoped  that  Burr 
would  take  final  leave  a  week 
before  the  present  date.  But  he 
had  still  stayed  on,  and  had  so  often 
163 


A  Romance  of 


been  seen  in  walks  and  drives  and 
rides  with  Pamela  that  gossip  had 
very  palpably  begun  its  condemning 
murmurs.  Meanwhile  the  colonel 
had  not  attempted,  as  Pamela's 
father  felt  but  too  well  assured,  to 
enlighten  his  child  regarding  Mark 
Frankland's  deceptive  attitude. 

"Pamela  is  an  enigma/'  Char- 
lotte had  lately  said  to  her  father, 
feeding  with  fresh  fuel  the  flame  of 
his  new  disquiet.  "  I  often  think 
she  has  forgotten  the  very  existence 
of  Mark.  There  are  times,  father, 
when  I  fancy  that  Colonel  Burr  has 
deliberately  tried  to  .  .  to  turn  her 
mind  in  another  direction." 

"Good  heavens,  Charlotte!  you 
don't  mean  that  he  has  dared,  at 
his  age,  and  with  his  shabby  repu- 
tation (however  undeserved  it  may 
be)  to  rouse  any  .  .  any  sentiment  in 
Pamela?" 

164 


Old  New  York 


But  Charlotte  swiftly  denied  the 
least  security  of  conviction.  All 
she  stuck  to  was  the  undoubted 
fact  that  Pamela  had  now  become 
deeply  interested  in  Colonel  Burr, 
and  seemed  ill  at  ease  when  an 
hour  passed  for  her  unshared  by  his 
company. 

"If  she  were  a  boy,"  muttered 
Verplanck,  half  to  himself,  "I'd 
send  her  on  a  voyage  round  the 
world, — yes,  as  a  sailor  before  the 
mast!" 

"  She  isn't  a  boy,  father,"  sighed 
Charlotte,  "  and  she  isn't  any  longer 
even  a  girl.  She's  become  a  woman, 
and  a  very  complicated,  mysterious, 
unmanageable  one." 

Two  days  before  the  Van  Wage- 
nen  ball,  Verplanck  said  at  dinner, — 

"  You,  Pamela,  will  probably 
care  to  go  with  me  to  Oakland 
on  Wednesday  evening.  As  your 
165 


A  Romance  of 


health,  my  dear,  has  now  so  splen- 
didly reasserted  itself,  you  should 
give  some  of  your  town  friends 
the  chance  of  congratulating  you. 
Charlotte,0  he  added,  in  a  slightly 
chilled  and  strained  voice,  "will 
perhaps  care  to  remain  at  home 
and  have  the  colonel  graciously 
let  her  beat  him  at  backgam- 
mon." 

"  I'm  sure,"  said  Charlotte  (think- 
ing of  her  last  letter  from  Mark, 
in  which  he  announced  his  near 
return),  "that  I  should  greatly  prefer 
such  an  arrangement." 

"  Father  will  have  to  go  alone, 
then,"  affirmed  Pamela,  with  her 
lips,  now  full  and  pink,  a  defiant 
pout.  Then  she  turned  to  Burr, 
smiling  saucily.  "The  colonel 
knows  I  would  resent  any  such 
condescension  at  backgammon,  but 
he  may  have  the  honor,  that  even- 

166 


Old  New  York 


ing,  of  continuing  with  me  his  valu- 
able lessons  at  whist." 

"On  Wednesday/1  said  Burr,  "I 
shall  have  returned  to  the  city. 
Already,"  he  went  on,  looking  with 
directness  at  his  host,  "  I  have  been 
tempted  too  long  away  from  my 
dreary  little  office  in  Reade  Street 
by  the  charming  courtesies  of  this 
charming  home." 

Pamela's  eyes  fired,  and  her 
cheeks  flushed.  "No,  no!"  she 
exclaimed.  "You  are  not  going  for 
a  week  yet!  I  made  you  promise 
so  this  very  afternoon." 

"You  made  me,"  corrected  Burr, 
with  a  kind  of  smiling  sadness, 
"  feel  very  sorry  that  I  could  not  so 
promise." 

Pamela  gave  her  head  a  mutinous 

toss.    "  There's  no  power  that  could 

force   me    to    the   Van   Wagenens' 

ball,"  she  said,  looking  straight  at 

167 


A  Romance  of 


her  father,  "unless  it  were  a  ques- 
tion of  putting  me  in  a  strait-jacket 
and  carrying  me  there." 

"Oh,  Pamela !"  reproved  Char- 
lotte. 

"  I  mean  every  word  of  what  I 
say !  You  and  father  can  go,  Char- 
lotte, if  you  please.  But  while 
Colonel  Burr  was  under  our  roof  as 
our  guest  the  Van  Wagenens  paid 
us  a  personal  insult  when  they  re- 
frained from  sending  him  an  invita- 
tion. I,  for  one,  shall  pocket  no 
such  insult.  Others  of  my  family 
may  do  as  they  desire. " 

Burr  sat  perfectly  still.  His  face, 
in  the  candle-light,  which  a  soft 
breeze  caused  slightly  to  waver, 
could  not  have  looked  more  motion- 
less if  it  had  been  stone  instead  of 
flesh. 


168 


Old  New  York 


XIII. 

AMID  dead  silence  Pamela 
rose  and  left  the  table.  It 
was  not  until  she  had  dis- 
appeared that  Burr  said,  addressing 
Verplanck, — 

"You  must  know  that  I  had 
neither  expectation  nor  desire  to  re- 
ceive a  card  for  this  ball.  On  Tues- 
day morning  I  had  intended  return- 
ing to  New  York.  No  one,  as  you 
must  realize,  can  regret  more  than  I 
do  this  unpleasant  little  develop- 
ment. " 

Verplanck  bowed,  though  not 
cordially.  He  glanced,  in  a  rather 
dazed  way,  at  the  table,  as  if  to 
assure  himself  that  the  fruits  served 
there  betokened  an  end  of  the  meal. 
Then  he  cast  his  eyes  about  the 
169 


A  Romance  of 


room,  as  if  to  make  certain  that  the 
servants  were  gone.  Soon  he  said, 
quite  softly,  to  Charlotte, — 

"  My  daughter,  will  you  be  good 
enough  to  leave  Colonel  Burr  and 
myself  together  for  a  few  minutes  ?" 

Charlotte  at  once  rose  and  glid- 
ingly  disappeared. 

Verplanck  sat  with  bent  head  for 
several  seconds.  Then,  meeting 
Burr's  polite  yet  firm  gaze,  he 
began : 

"  Colonel,  these  later  weeks  have 
produced  in  Pamela,  as  you  your- 
self have  no  doubt  perceived,  an  im- 
mense change.  If  she  were  not  my 
own  child,  and  I  were  not  overjoyed 
by  her  thorough  recovery,  I  might 
call  it  a  change  almost  ludicrous; 
and  you  know  why.  But  for  a  still 
more  powerful  reason,  as  it  pains 
me  to  tell  you,  I  cannot  call  it  that. 
The  truth  is,  my  friend,  Pamela's 
170 


Old  New  York 


frequent  appearances  in  your  so- 
ciety—  the  spying  and  prying  of 
occasional  visitors  at  Shady  Shore 
— possibly  even  the  gossip  of  domes- 
tics as  well — have  caused  certain 
unkind  rumors.  .  .  I  trust  you  will 
believe,  Burr,  that  I  speak  with  no 
idle  wish  to  wound  you."  And 
here  Verplanck  rested  his  hand,  for 
a  moment,  on  the  other's  arm. 

"  You  could  not  wound  me  by 
such  a  revelation,"  Burr  serenely 
answered.  "  I  would  not  be  the 
hunted  and  maligned  man  I  am  if 
calumnies  and  aspersions  of  all 
sorts  had  not  grown  familiar  to  me 
as  the  motions  of  hands  and  feet.  .  . 
Well,  now,  since  you  have  spoken 
thus  frankly,  I  will  be  equally  frank 
in  return.  But  before  uttering  a 
word  of  my  intended  confession,  I 
wish  to  make  you  another  and  much 
briefer  one." 

171 


A  Romance  of 


"Confession?"    murmured    Ver- 
planck.     "  I    have    never   supposed 


"You  have  never  supposed  any 
but  the  most  charitable  things  of 
me.  You  have  painted  me,  as  I  am 
too  guiltily  aware,  far  less  black 
than  I  deserve.  But  enough  of  that. 
The  world,  as  you  well  know,  im- 
putes to  Aaron  Burr  many  atroci- 
ties of  conduct."  At  this  point, 
without  the  faintest  theatric  import, 
yet  with  much  marked  solemnity, 
he  lifted  his  right  hand.  "But  I 
swear  to  you  that  in  spite  of  all 
slanderous  contrary  statements,  I 
hold  no  crime  more  detestable  than 
that  of  a  woman's  betrayal.  I  have 
never  had  but  one  child — my  be- 
loved and  lost  Theodosia !  Yet  if 
I  had  had  a  son,  and  he  had 
brought  dishonor  upon  a  family  by 
ruining  a  daughter  of  it,  I  would 
172 


Old  New  York 


shoot  him  as  I  would  shoot  a 
dog!"* 

Verplanck,  paler  than  usual, 
slowly  inclined  his  head.  "  Such 
avowal  from  you,"  he  said,  in 
smothered  and  uneasy  voice,  "was 
of  course  needless.  Yet  perhaps 
I  may  unwittingly  have  drawn  it 
forth."  His  serious  face  now 
brightened  inquiringly.  "And  the 
other  '  confession'  to  which  you 
referred?" 

Burr  leaned  backward  in  his  chair. 
Deep  thought  seemed  to  absorb  him 
for  a  short  while ;  then,  with  an 
access  of  soft  vivacity,  he  began 
to  speak,  straightening  his  posture, 
and  at  times  waving  slightly  be- 
fore him  both  delicate  and  shapely 
hands. 

*  See  Parton's  Life  of  Aaron  Burr,  vol. 
ii.  page  308. 

173 


A  Romance  of 


His  first  few  sentences  were 
graphic  yet  succinct.  They  told  of 
Mark's  visit,  that  morning,  to  his 
chambers,  and  of  the  young  man's 
distressed  entreaty  for  counsel  in 
a  frame  of  mind  bordering  almost 
upon  frenzy. 

"  I  then  conceived  a  friendly  idea 
of  aiding  him,"  Burr  went  on,  "and 
that  idea  I  have  endeavored  to  carry 
out.  It  is  difficult  to  speak  of  the 
idea:  .  .  how  shall  I  make  it  clear 
enough  without  having  you  think 
me  a  monster  of  vainglory?  Yet 
that  is  something  so  different  from 
what,  in  all  justice,  I  want  to  have 
you  think  me !  .  .  My  dear  Ver- 
planck,  I  was  the  lover  of  my  own 
sweet  daughter.  I  never  meet  a 
young  woman — seldom  even  a  ma- 
tured one — that  I  don't  feel  it  in  me 
to  make  her  fond  of  me,  to  persuade 
her  that  I'm  a  vastly  amusing  and 
174 


Old  New  York 


engaging  fellow.  The  odd  part  of 
the  matter  is  that  this  impulse 
didn't  die  in  me  twenty  years  ago — 
that  it  has  not  only  survived  in 
me,  but  survived  with  unlessened 
ardor  and  tenacity.  They  have  told 
shameful  lies  about  me  in  my  re- 
lations with  women  (notably  in  the 
case  of  poor  Margaret  Moncrieffe), 
but  beneath  all  their  lies  a  certain 
stratum  of  truth  has  lain.  I  was 
born  with  the  power  of  making 
women  like  me,  just  as  some  men 
are  born  with  the  power  of  con- 
trolling horses,  others  with  that  of 
sailing  ships.  My  power  I  might 
have  terribly  abused,  nor  would  I 
for  an  instant  claim  that  I  have  not 
often  used  it  with  wayward  folly. 
But  I  have  never,  as  my  enemies 
often  state,  steeped  it  in  infamy.  .  . 
And  so,  Verplanck,  when  Mark 
Frankland  bemoaned  to  me  his 


A  Romance  of 


wretched  situation,  wrought  by  the 
recovery  of  a  girl  whose  last  hours 
he  had  been  called  upon  to  con- 
sole with  falsely  amorous  protes- 
tations— when  he  cried  miserably 
to  me,  *  Colonel,  here  I  am,  the 
sworn  and  loyal  sweetheart  of  one 
sister  while  bound  by  charitable 
falsehoods  to  another — another  who 
will  claim  the  fulfilment  of  every 
deceitful  promise  I  have  given 
her/  then  did  I,  caring  for  the 
young  man  and  pitying  his  unfor- 
tunate yet  wholly  blameless  posi- 
tion, bethink  me  of  a  plan  to  save 
him." 

"To  save  him,  Burr?" 

"  Oh,  to  pull  him  out  of  a  hole, 
if  you  like  blunter  speech,  my  good 
man — to  smooth  and  straighten  the 
entire  sad  yet  ridiculous  turmoil. 
Do  you  guess,  now,  what  this  plan 
was?" 

176 


Old  New  York 


"I  think  I  do." 

"He  did  not,  nor  would  I  tell  him. 
I  merely  ordered  him  to  prolong  his 
stay  in  Boston."  Here  Burr  lifted 
toward  his  lips  the  fragment  of  a 
cut  peach  that  lay  on  his  fruit-plate. 
Then  he  flung  the  morsel  back 
again,  rising. 

"  I  don't  think  my  plan  has 
failed,"  he  said,  meeting  Ver- 
planck's  look  with  his  cool,  blue, 
steady  eye. 

Verplanck  rose  also.  "  It  may 
have  gone  too  far." 

Burr  shrugged  his  shoulders. 
"  At  her  age  !  The  impression  will 
doubtless  fade  in  another  month." 
His  voice  mellowed  queerly,  now, 
and  a  pensive  gravity  overspread 
his  sensitive  face.  "  Absence  will 
do  its  sure  work,  just  as  it  did  in 
the  case  of  Mark  Frankland." 

"There  his  absence,  as  you  seem 
12  177 


A  Romance  of 


to  forget,"  said  Verplanck,  with 
gathering  sternness,  "was  aided  in 
its  effect  by  your  own  presence." 

"True.  .  .  Well,  I've  done  my 
duty  as  a  friend  in  need." 

"To  Frankland— yes.  But  what 
about  your  neglect  of  it  toward 
myself?" 

The  two  men  faced  each  other. 
Verplanck' s  eyes  were  very  cold. 
From  Burr's  lips  broke  a  glittering 
smile. 

"How,"  he  asked,  "have  I  neg- 
lected it  there?  To  disembarrass 
Mark  was  surely  to  disembarrass 
yourself— and  your  daughter,  Char- 
lotte, as  well." 

"You  have  been  playing  with 
edged  tools,  Burr,"  said  Verplanck, 
haughtily  and  gruffly ;  "  worse— you 
have  been  playing  with  fire." 

"In    desperate    cases    desperate 
remedies.    I  took  them." 
178 


Old  New  York 


"  And  without  my  consent.  Do 
you  call  that  fair  dealing?" 

"As  fair,"  sped  the  answer,  "as 
for  you  to  force  a  poor  love-smitten 
lad  like  Frankland  into  acting  the 
hypocrite." 

Verplanck  started.  He  caught 
from  the  table  a  crumpled  napkin, 
held  it  an  instant  to  his  mouth,  and 
then  cast  it  down. 

"  I— I  did  that  to  save  my  child's 
life." 

"And  7  acted  as  the  friend  and 
well-wisher  of  your  other  child's 
accepted  husband." 

"I  deny  your  claim  in  so  acting." 

"Mark  Frankland  will  justify  it." 

"  How  should  that  concern  me  ?" 

"  In  this  way  :  you  plunged  Mark 
into  an  undeserved  and  cruel  diffi- 
culty." 

"  From  which  you   presumed  to 
try  and  extricate  him." 
179 


A  Romance  of 


"At  his  request — yes.  And  you, 
by  no  means  at  his  request,  had 
presumed  to  place  him  there." 

"  These  are  your  old  lawyer's 
tricks,"  growled  Verplanck,  half 
turning  away.  "  God  knows  I'm 
no  match  for  you.  Neither  was  the 
country,  even  though  it  tried  you 
for  treason — and  a  kind  of  treason 
no  baser,  after  all,  than  this  using  of 
your  wanton  arts  on  my  innocent 
girl!" 

Burr  folded  his  arms,  with  eyes 
blazing  yet  with  composure  immo- 
bile, and  with  manner  melancholy 
though  austere. 

"You  prove  yourself  a  coward 
to  reproach  me  with  my  past  mis- 
fortunes," he  said;  and  his  voice, 
not  seemingly  raised,  could  have 
been  heard  farther  than  many  a 
voice  of  more  apparent  volume. 
"  But  by  insulting  me  while  I  am 
1 80 


Old  New  York 


your  guest  you  strip  yourself,  be- 
sides, of  all  right  to  be  called  a 
gentleman." 

"Let  me  go,  Charlotte!"  came 
a  cry  just  beyond  a  half-closed 
door. 

"  No,  no,  Pamela !" 

"I  will— I  tell  you  I  will!"  And 
Pamela,  violently  agitated,  rushed 
into  the  room.  "  Colonel  Burr  is 
right!"  she  flung  to  her  father. 
"  You  have  just  insulted  him — I 
heard  what  you  said.  And  often  I 
have  heard  you  speak  so  differently ! 
'  More  sinned  against  than  sinning* 
— those  were  the  words  you  often 
used.  And  not  seldom,  too,  have 
you  said  of  him  that  he  was  the 
most  slandered  and  unjustly  per- 
secuted of  all  the  great — all  the  few 
very  great — statesmen  our  country 
has  thus  far  produced !" 

"Pamela,"   stormily  commanded 

181 


A  Romance  of 


her    father,    "leave    this    room    at 
once!" 

"No;  not  till  I've  told  you  a 
few  plain  facts.  I  feel,  though  I'm 
not  sure,  that  you  have  upbraided 
Colonel  Burr  for  showing  me  kind- 
ness through  these  past  weeks ;  I 
feel  this  because  of  certain  hints 
you've  dropped,  father,  full  of  bitter 
discontent.  And  now  I'll  inform 
you,  fearlessly  and  openly,  that 
Colonel  Burr's  presence  in  this 
house  in  no  way  concerned  my 
change  of  feeling  toward  Mark 
Frankland  —  for  on  that  change 
I'm  sure  you  and  Charlotte  have 
passed  comments  together.  .  . 
Indeed,  Charlotte  admitted  to  me 


"  Pamela  !f '  her  sister  exclaimed. 

" admitted  to  me,  only  yester- 
day, that  you  had  both  wondered  at 
my  indifference,  and  the  slight  time 
182 


Old  New  York 


I  gave  to  the  answering  of  Mark's 
love-letters." 

A  burst  of  ironical  laughter  pre- 
ceded Pamela's  next  words.  "  Love- 
letters,  forsooth !  All  the  time  we 
have  been  at  Shady  Shore  I  knew 
the  truth  !  I  kept  it  hidden ;  in  my 
frequent  talks  with  Colonel  Burr  I 
was  tempted  to  tell  him,  but  I  did 
not.  Gerald  Suydam,  on  the  first 
day  I  went  out  alone  after  my  ill- 
ness, met  me  and  made  everything 
plain.  Mark  Frankland  had  con- 
fided to  him  your  plot — yours  and 
Charlotte's.  It  was  a  terrible  de- 
ception— but  I  forgave  you.  I  knew 
your  love  for  me,  your  dread  that  I 
might  die,  had  prompted  it.  And 
all  this  time  you  have  thought  that 
Colonel  Burr's  goodness  in  deigning 
to  treat  me  civilly  and  cordially  was 
my  reason  for  caring  less  and  less 
about  Mark.  No— disgust  and  con- 
183 


A  Romance  of 


tempt  were  my  reason !  I  may 
be  wrong,  and  I  may  judge  him 
with  partiality  and  prejudice,  but  it 
seems  to  me  that  he  should  have 
told  both  you  and  Charlotte  it  were 
better  to  lose  a  daughter  and  a  sister 
than  to  take  so  hypocritic  a  means 
of  saving  her  life !  And  his  false- 
hoods, as  I  now  firmly  believe,  never 
saved  my  life.  Nothing  saved  it  but 
the  will  of  nature,  the  turn  for  the 
better  in  my  malady,  whatever  that 
really  was.  And  so  you  wrong 
Colonel  Burr  most  cruelly,  father, 
when  you  even  suspect  that  he  has 
had  the  least  share  in  my  disregard 
of  Mark.  Scarcely  ever,  in  our  talks, 
have  we  even  mentioned  his  name. 
Oh,  I  did  not  hear  much  that  you 
said,  but  I  heard  enough  to  sicken 
me  with  horror  and  shame.  You  to 
sneer  at  his  '  lawyer's  tricks/  when 
I  have  heard  you,  again  and  again, 
184 


Old  New  York 


praise  his  legal  abilities  as  glorious ! 
You  to  accuse  him  of  using  wanton 
arts  on  an  innocent  girl,  when  every 
new  moment  of  his  companionship 
has  taught  me  more  and  more  to 
respect  while  I  admired  him  ! .  .  Oh, 
colonel,"  she  continued,  still  keep- 
ing her  eyes  on  her  father's  face, 
now  ashen  and  deeply  perturbed, 
"  I  am  certain  that  father  will  make 
you  amends  for  the  dreadful  insult 
he  has  just  paid  you !  I  am  certain 

that  his  sense  of  honor " 

And  there  Pamela  paused.  In 
the  spot  where  Burr  had  stood  was 
vacancy.  He  had  quietly  vanished. 


185 


A  Romance  of 


XIV. 

AT  once,  after  leaving  the 
dining-room,  Burr  went  to 
his  own  apartment  upstairs 
and  gathered  together  all  his  pos- 
sessions— all  very  simple  and  easy 
of  redisposition  within  his  trunk — 
employing  that  speed  and  dexterity 
which  were  half  due  to  his  early 
military  life  and  half  to  the  years 
of  hardship  which  had  succeeded 
it.  Then  he  pulled  the  bell-rope, 
and  held  a  little  consultation  with 
the  black  servant  who  soon  ap- 
peared. In  that  crisp,  concise  form 
of  speech  which  he  knew  so  well 
how  to  adopt,  Burr  made  it  clear 
that  he  wanted  a  conveyance  as 
soon  as  possible,  and  one  that 
should  bear  himself  and  his  lug- 

186 


Old  New  York 


gage  to  a  certain  small  hotel  about 
a  mile  distant,  where  he  meant  to 
pass  the  night.  When  the  man 
departed  he  plainly  understood  and 
had  promised  carefully  to  obey. 
Every  servant  at  Shady  Shore  was 
now  Burr's  sworn  friend;  his  power 
of  attracting  inferiors  by  an  occa- 
sional kind  word  or  smile  was  a 
minor  feature  of  his  almost  historic 
personal  charm. 

When  sure  that  his  order  would 
be  carried  out  to  the  letter,  and  that 
within  a  half-hour  his  trunk  would 
be  waiting  for  him  in  a  vehicle  near 
one  of  the  smaller  lawn  gates,  Burr 
went  downstairs  and  stood  for  a 
moment  in  the  dimmish  hall.  He 
had  meant  to  leave  the  house  forth- 
with by  its  rear  door,  but  seeing  that 
the  front  door  at  the  end  of  the  wide 
hall  was  open,  and  feeling  the  cool, 
salty  breeze  that  pulsed  below  its 
187 


A  Romance  of 


lintel,  he  remembered  that  he  would 
have  ample  leisure  to  steal  out  by 
this  mode  of  egress  and  get  a  fare- 
well glimpse  of  the  wooded  shore- 
land  which  recent  associations  had 
taught  him  to  treasure. 

All  prepared  for  final  departure, 
he  moved  past  two  or  three  lamp-lit 
rooms,  looking  neither  to  right  nor 
left.  Then  came  the  gloom  of  the 
high-columned  portico ;  then  the 
descent  of  its  steps,  and  then  the 
waterward  slope  of  the  lawns.  Off 
beyond  the  Sound  a  full  moon  had 
lately  risen,  but  at  first  he  had  only 
a  sense  of  its  elfin  glamours  up  be- 
tween the  interspaces  of  the  many 
dark  and  stately  trees.  Presently 
he  came  to  the  water's  edge,  where 
a  full  tide  lapped  the  rocks  and  a 
splendid  pathway  of  rippled  silver 
broadened  from  the  shadowy  Long 
Island  shore.  Between  two  great 

188 


Old  New  York 


tree-trunks  there  was  a  rustic  seat 
which  he  well  knew.  He  sank  into 
it,  and  watched  the  magnificent 
lunar  glow  and  listened  to  the 
drowsy,  voluminous  cadences  of 
the  soft  wind  among  the  bowering 
trees.  It  was  a  perfect  night— one 
of  those  few  exquisite  ones  which 
our  rather  churlishly  hot  American 
summers  are  apt  to  spare  us.  Burr, 
who  loved  nature  with  the  soul  of  a 
poet,  cherished  all  its  grandeur  and 
sweetness  at  their  full,  rich  worth. 

"Well,"  he  thought,  "I  have 
striven  to  do  a  friend  service,  and 
have  received  scorn  for  my  wage. 
Has  it  often  been  otherwise  with 
me,  through  all  my  curious,  twisted, 
calamitous  life  ?  No  doubt  the 
things  I  have  done  that  men  call 
evil  things  have  mostly,  if  not  all  of 
them,  sprung  from  just  this  sense 
of  disesteemed  effort,  underprized 
189 


A  Romance  of 


purpose,  misvalued  energy.  .  .  Let 
that  dear,  wilful  girl  say  what  she 
chooses — I  did  snatch  her  from  the 
woful  results  of  her  own  unfortu- 
nate sentiment.  It  has  not  been 
Gerald  Suy dam's  disclosure ;  it  has 
been  my  own  steadily  worked-out 
method  of  consolement,  distraction, 
mentally  and  emotionally  alike." 

"Colonel  Burr." 

He  rose  quickly  as  his  own  name 
mingled  itself  with  the  rustlings  of 
the  trees.  Then  he  saw  Pamela 
standing  near  him. 

"You — you  are  going  away,"  she 
said,  her  glance  having  gathered 
in  this  fact  by  a  swift  measuring 
survey  of  his  altered  dress.  "  I 
saw  you  from  my  window  upstairs. 
You  came  here — I  know  why — to 
bid  our  pleasant  haunts  a  silent 
farewell."  Her  eyes  were  shining 
wildly  in  the  sylvan  dusk  of  the 
190 


Old  New  York 


place.  She  was  bareheaded,  and 
clad  in  a  light  simple  frock  whose 
high-waisted  fashion  of  the  period 
became  her  frail  yet  rounded  shape, 
and  blew  backward  in  the  marine 
night-breeze  with  a  fairy  effect  of 
gossamer  pliancy. 

"  Father  was  very  wrong — in- 
famously wrong — to  speak  as  he 
did,  and  you  are  right  to  go.  Yet 
I  feel  you  cannot  be  angry — you 
have  long  borne  too  much  un- 
merited insult  for  that;  you  are 
only  grieved  to  the  depths  of  your 
soul — your  noble  and  patient  soul! 
But  still,  father  will  make  you 
amends — I  am  certain  of  it.  Unless 

"  And  here  Pamela  suddenly 

paused. 

"Unless  .  .  ?"  Burr  questioned, 
with  an  involuntary  repetition  of 
the  girl's  own  word. 

"  Unless  you  are  willing  that  I 
191 


A  Romance  of 


should  share  with  you  your  future. 
I  know  this  is  madly  bold  of  me — 
I  know  that  you  may  despise  me 
for  it.  But  to-morrow  I  could  meet 
you — if  you  are  really  going  to- 
night, as  I  know  you  are — and  then, 
provided  .  .  .  " 

"My  dear  Pamela,"  said  Burr, 
drawing  nearer  to  her,  as  she  again 
paused,  "what  are  you  saying? 
Share  my  future,  child?  How 
could  you  possibly  share  it  but  in 
one  way  ?" 

"That  is  the  way  I  mean,"  she 
gasped.  Her  bosom  rose  and  fell  in 
quick  pulsations  below  her  delicate 
bodice.  She  looked  like  a  young, 
sweet,  fiery  angel,  with  her  scintil- 
lant  eyes,  and  her  parted  lips,  and 
her  wind-waved  floss  of  hair,  and 
her  fluttering  draperies. 

"That  is  the  way  I  mean,"  she 
again  said,  each  word  in  a  sort  of 
192 


Old  New  York 


sobbed  staccato.  "The  one  way — 
the  honorable  way !  I — I  pity  you 
so  deeply !  You  have  told  me  much 
of  your  past  life,  and  you  have 
always  spoken  of  its  weakness,  its 
failure,  its  wrongdoing.  But  I  have 
seen  more  than  you  chose  to  show 
me,  and  I  have  fancied  that  you 
might  care  to  let  me  stand  between 
you  and  your  vilifiers — not  making 
the  least  sacrifice — far  from  that — 
but  helping  where  I  could,  and 
healing  where  I  could,  and  always 
giving  you  the  devotion  and  as- 
suagement and  comfort  of  which 
you  have  unconsciously  taught  me 
to  believe  you  so  worthy !" 

Burr  stood  quite  still  as  her  plead- 
ing impetuosity  became  silence. 
He  saw  that  she  had  stretched  both 
hands  half-way,  as  if  to  meet  the 
response  of  his  own.  But  for  a 
while  he  did  not  take  them.  It 
13  193 


A  Romance  of 


was  only  a  brief  while,  and  yet  its 
interval  was  packed  for  him  with 
a  mighty  temptation. 

His  advanced  years  had  brought 
with  them  none  of  the  feebleness 
they  bring  to  many  another  man. 
This  was  more  than  proved  by  his 
marriage,  fourteen  years  later,  to 
Madame  Jumel,  a  woman  whom  he 
did  not  love,  and  in  wedding  whom, 
at  Fort  Washington,  just  fifty  years 
from  the  time  that  he  had  wedded 
the  mother  of  his  adored  Theo- 
dosia,*  he  committed  what  was 
almost  the  crowning  folly  of  his 
strange  career. 

And  now,  before  one  of  his  sus- 
ceptible nature  and  splendid  physi- 
cal hardihood,  there  rose  this  temp- 

*  The  same  clergyman,  a  Dr.  Bogert,  who 
had  performed  that  earlier  ceremony,  united 
him,  fifty  years  later,  to  Madame  Jumel. 
194 


Old  New  York 


tation  of  immense  potency.  To 
humor  Pamela's  wish  he  had  only 
to  make  an  acquiescent  sign.  To- 
morrow she  might  become  his  wife 
— she,  the  daughter  of  Varick  Ver- 
planck,  a  man  widely  honored,  a 
merchant  of  conspicuous  wealth 
and  influence,  the  friend  of  Clay 
and  Adams  and  Randolph,  one  who 
had  but  to  lift  his  hand  in  order  to 
find  himself  mayor  of  the  city  or 
governor  of  the  State.  Here  would 
be  rehabilitation,  past  dispute.  The 
returned  exile,  the  despised  outcast, 
the  erstwhile  fugitive,  would  have 
achieved  incalculable  social  gain. 
Many  might  still  refuse  to  counte- 
nance him,  but  many  more  would 
regard  him  on  totally  altered  terms. 
The  chance,  the  opportunity,  was 
priceless.  And  was  he  not  capable 
of  bestowing  on  this  enthusiastic 
and  impassioned  girl  a  fondness  and 
195 


A  Romance  of 


fidelity  which  would  shield  her 
against  disappointment,  repentance, 
ennui  ?  Might  she  not  become  an 
old  man's  darling  in  every  sweetest, 
most  reverent,  most  enviable  sense? 
But  the  picture  had  its  reverse 
side.  Such  a  match,  on  her  part, 
must  prove,  after  all,  a  fatal  mis- 
take. And,  besides,  she  was  too 
young  to  be  trusted  with  the  arbi- 
tration of  its  wisdom  or  unwisdom, 
its  policy  or  impolicy,  its  prudence 
or  rashness.  No ;  he  might  indeed 
have  "gone  too  far,"  as  Verplanck 
had  lately  said;  but  he  would  go 
not  a  step  farther.  He  had  alien- 
ated her  from  Mark,  and  had  taken 
that  course  solely  through  an  im- 
pulse of  friendly  aid.  Here  his  task 
should  end.  A  few  recent  weeks 
of  this  girl's  existence  he  had  made 
his  own.  Her  future  was  like  some 
frangible  crystalline  thing  which 
196 


Old  New  York 


honor  and  conscience  forbade  him 
to  handle,  forbade  him  even  to 
touch.  "  Honor  and  conscience  in 
an  Aaron  Burr!"  so  many  would 
cry  scorningly,  if  they  knew.  But 
they  should  not  know.  They  had 
enough  of  his  alleged  criminalities 
to  wreak  expression  upon.  Let 
them  glut  their  spleen  with  those. 
"Pamela,"  he  soon  said,  very 
gently,  taking  both  her  hands,  "  I 
promise  you  always  to  guard  with 
my  life,  as  a  sacred  confidence,  your 
tender  and  lovely  disclosure.  But 
for  your  own  sake,  dear  child,  I 
answer  that  the  granting  of  your 
wish  would  be  on  my  part  a  dis- 
loyalty, a  treachery,  even  a  cow- 
ardice as  well.  I  say  this  boldly, 
though  hating  to  wound.  And  what 
hurt  I  inflict  will,  believe  me,  cease 
more  speedily  than  you  dream. 
Your  days  are  bright  with  promise 
197 


A  Romance  of 


and  hope — mine  are  darkened  with 
the  shadows  of  approaching  old 
age,  apart  from  those  of  bereave- 
ment, poverty,  and  ruthless  popular 
dislike.  With  all  my  soul  I  thank 
you — I  dare  not  trust  myself  to  say 
more.  .  .  I  shall  never  forget  you — 
shall  watch  your  joys  with  a  great 
gladness  hereafter,  and  grieve 
deeply  for  your  sorrows — which 
may  a  merciful  God  lighten,  if  He 
does  not  wholly  avert!*1 

For  a  moment  Burr's  lips  drew 
nearer  to  hers.  Then,  as  with  stout 
effort,  he  receded  a  little,  still  clasp- 
ing her  hands.  On  each  of  these  he 
pressed  two  or  three  quick  kisses, 
and  where  the  kisses  fell,  big  heavy 
tears  fell,  too. 

Then  he  dashed  the  tears  away 

with   either    freed    hand,    for    they 

blinded  him  in  the  dimness.     And 

without    another   look   at   Pamela, 

198 


Old  New  York 


who  stood  pale  and  tremulous,  he 
hurried  off  among  the  enshrouding 
trees.  .  . 

Later,  he  found  that  the  vehicle, 
with  his  trunk  inside  it,  waited  in 
the  precise  spot  where  he  had  de- 
sired it  to  meet  him.  Entering,  he 
was  borne  to  the  inn  at  which  he 
had  purposed  passing  the  night, 
spent  there  many  sleepless  hours, 
and  finally,  early  on  the  following 
morning,  was  driven  by  stagecoach 
to  New  York. 

*  *  5fC  *  #  * 

Two  days  afterward  he  sat  in  his 
office.  The  time  was  a  half-hour 
or  so  before  noon.  On  his  desk  lay 
a  letter,  which  he  had  repeatedly 
read.  It  was  from  Varick  Ver- 
planck,  and  it  teemed  with  contri- 
tion and  apology. 

"  Kind  old  friend !"  Burr  at  length 
murmured,  aloud,  while  he  slowly 
199 


A  Romance  of 


refolded  the  letter.  "  As  if  it  needed 
so  much  fine  rhetoric  to  make  me 
forgive  you !  And  as  if  I  didn't 
realize,  five  minutes  afterward,  that 
you  never  meant  a  word  of  your 
insult !"  He  gave  a  long,  slow  sigh. 

"Ah,  Varick  Verplanck,  if  all  the 
stabs  I've  got  from  my  fellow-men 
had  only  drawn  as  little  blood  as 
yours  did,  how  much  happier  and 
braver  and  thankfuller  a  man  the 
present  moment  would  find  me  !" 

His  low  words  had  hardly  died 
away  when  Mark  Frankland,  'with 
tumultuous  lack  of  ceremony,  burst 
into  his  office.  "My  dear  colonel! 
Give  me  both  your  hands  to  shake ! 
I'm  so  glad  to  see  you  again — and 
thank  you !" 

"You  arrived  home  to-day, 
Mark?" 

"  No — last  night  at  about  nine, 
miserably  tired  with  that  endless 


Old  New  York 


jolting  journey,  as  you  may  well 
believe.  Now  that  we  can  sail  by 
steam,  why  can't  we  ride  by  it  ?" 

"  We  shall,  in  a  short  time.  Note 
my  words — before  five  years  have 
passed,  that  brilliant  Englishman, 
George  Stephenson,  will  have  per- 
fected his  engine,  and  blessed  the 
century  with  a  priceless  boon.  .  . 
You  received  my  letter  when  you 
reached  home?" 

"Yes.  Ah,  colonel!  And  that 
was  your  *  plan* !  Oh,  you  sly 
wizard!"  Mark  broke  into  a  roar 
of  the  blithest  laughter.  Then, 
seeing  the  sadness  on  Burr's  face, 
he  swiftly  added, — 

"  But  I  do  trust  there's  been  no 
— no  disastrous  complication?" 

"No  .  .  none." 

"  And  Pamela  does  not  guess  the 
truth?" 

"  She  does  not  guess  that  /—well, 


A  Romance  of 


you  understand.  Regarding  the 
other  part  of  it,  Gerald  Suydam,  as 
I  wrote  you  yesterday,  broke  faith 
with  you  and  told  her  of  your  mer- 
ciful duplicity." 

"  Gerald  Suydam  —  yes  !"  cried 
Mark,  his  face  clouding.  "Whom 
should  I  run  against  this  very  morn- 
ing, before  I  had  gone  half-way  to 
father's  office,  but  that  same  tanta- 
lizing young  person !  One  minute 
he  implored  my  pardon  for  letting 
the  cat  out  of  the  bag  to  Pamela, 
and  the  next  he  spoke  with  jealous 
wrath  and  scorn  of  you." 

"  He  had  heard  certain  rumors, 
then,  from  Shady  Shore  ?  Well,  he 
may  set  his  excited  mind  at  rest. 
Some  day,  if  he  prove  himself  a 
•wise  and  patient  wooer,  he  may 
win  Pamela  for  his  wife,  after  all. 
It's  by  no  means  certain,  however. 
His  way  to  matrimony  will  be  a 


Old  New  York 


rough  one,  I  promise  him.  It  is 
not  paved  'with  ease  and  peace,  like 
yours  and  Charlotte's. " 

Mark's  face  brightened  again. 
"Ah,  colonel!"  he  exclaimed,  leap- 
ing up  from  the  chair  into  which  he 
had  thrown  himself,  "if  Charlotte 
and  I  marry  and  have  children,  I 
should  like  to  fling  defiance  at  all 
your  foes  by  calling  our  first  boy 
Aaron  Burr  Frankland !" 

"  I'm  sure  you  would  not  be 
capable  of  doing  anything  so  un- 
fatherly,"  said  Burr,  shaking  his 
head,  with  a  grim  smile.  Then, 
after  a  moment,  the  smile  grew 
limpid,  genial,  characteristic.  "Call 
him  by  another  name,  my  boy.  Call 
him  after  the  woman  whose  life 
brought  me  more  happiness  than 
all  my  successes,  and  whose  death 
has  dealt  me  more  pain  than  all  my 
other  sorrows  combined. " 
203 


A  Romance  of  Old  New  York 

"You  mean  .  .  Theodosia ?"  said 
Mark  Frankland,  softly. 

"  Yes  !  Call  your  first  boy,  if  God 
gives  you  one — Theodore  !" 


THE  END. 


ElECTROTYPEO  AND  PRINTED  BY  J.  B.  LlPPINCOTT  COMPANY, 

PHILADELPHIA,  U.  8.  A. 
204 


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old  New  York. 


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